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And scale was certainly top of mind less than two weeks ago when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went to the White House and announced a new project called Stargate that he claims will spend $500 billion building data centers around the country to supercharge OpenAI's ability to train and deploy new models.

Altman's claim is essentially that you need to spend a lot of money to train AGI, or artificial general intelligence, however that is defined. And once you achieve AGI, however that's defined, the productivity gains across the economy will more than justify the enormous investment. DeepSeek, on the other hand, might be evidence that you don't have to spend all that money.

Altman's claim is essentially that you need to spend a lot of money to train AGI, or artificial general intelligence, however that is defined. And once you achieve AGI, however that's defined, the productivity gains across the economy will more than justify the enormous investment. DeepSeek, on the other hand, might be evidence that you don't have to spend all that money.

Altman's claim is essentially that you need to spend a lot of money to train AGI, or artificial general intelligence, however that is defined. And once you achieve AGI, however that's defined, the productivity gains across the economy will more than justify the enormous investment. DeepSeek, on the other hand, might be evidence that you don't have to spend all that money.

and that the United States export controls of NVIDIA chips to China might not have been very effective at all. The aftermath of all this has been a bloodbath, to put it lightly. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has been advising the Trump White House and Trump himself, called deep-seek AI Sputnik moment, referencing Russia's early win in the space race.

and that the United States export controls of NVIDIA chips to China might not have been very effective at all. The aftermath of all this has been a bloodbath, to put it lightly. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has been advising the Trump White House and Trump himself, called deep-seek AI Sputnik moment, referencing Russia's early win in the space race.

and that the United States export controls of NVIDIA chips to China might not have been very effective at all. The aftermath of all this has been a bloodbath, to put it lightly. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has been advising the Trump White House and Trump himself, called deep-seek AI Sputnik moment, referencing Russia's early win in the space race.

And that does appear to be how the AI industry and global financial markets are treating it. In DeepSeek and Stargate, we have the perfect encapsulation of two competing visions for the future of AI. Stargate is closed and expensive and requires placing an ever-increasing amount of money and faith into the hands of open AI and its partners.

And that does appear to be how the AI industry and global financial markets are treating it. In DeepSeek and Stargate, we have the perfect encapsulation of two competing visions for the future of AI. Stargate is closed and expensive and requires placing an ever-increasing amount of money and faith into the hands of open AI and its partners.

And that does appear to be how the AI industry and global financial markets are treating it. In DeepSeek and Stargate, we have the perfect encapsulation of two competing visions for the future of AI. Stargate is closed and expensive and requires placing an ever-increasing amount of money and faith into the hands of open AI and its partners.

The other is scrappy and open source, but with major questions around censorship of information, data privacy practices, and whether it's truly as low cost as we're being told. The only thing that's clear is that we've entered a new phase of the AI arms race, and DeepSeek and Stargate represent more than just two different paths towards superintelligence.

The other is scrappy and open source, but with major questions around censorship of information, data privacy practices, and whether it's truly as low cost as we're being told. The only thing that's clear is that we've entered a new phase of the AI arms race, and DeepSeek and Stargate represent more than just two different paths towards superintelligence.

The other is scrappy and open source, but with major questions around censorship of information, data privacy practices, and whether it's truly as low cost as we're being told. The only thing that's clear is that we've entered a new phase of the AI arms race, and DeepSeek and Stargate represent more than just two different paths towards superintelligence.

They also represent a new escalating front in the US-China relationship and the geopolitics of AI. This is all becoming especially fraught as Trump continues to wreak havoc on foreign relations with new threats of tariffs on foreign semiconductors. There's a whole lot going on here, and this news cycle is moving really fast.

They also represent a new escalating front in the US-China relationship and the geopolitics of AI. This is all becoming especially fraught as Trump continues to wreak havoc on foreign relations with new threats of tariffs on foreign semiconductors. There's a whole lot going on here, and this news cycle is moving really fast.

They also represent a new escalating front in the US-China relationship and the geopolitics of AI. This is all becoming especially fraught as Trump continues to wreak havoc on foreign relations with new threats of tariffs on foreign semiconductors. There's a whole lot going on here, and this news cycle is moving really fast.

So to break it all down, I invited Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison on the show to discuss all the events in the past couple weeks and figure out where the AI industry might be headed next. Okay, DeepSeek, Stargate, and a new AI arms race. Here we go.

So to break it all down, I invited Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison on the show to discuss all the events in the past couple weeks and figure out where the AI industry might be headed next. Okay, DeepSeek, Stargate, and a new AI arms race. Here we go.

So to break it all down, I invited Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison on the show to discuss all the events in the past couple weeks and figure out where the AI industry might be headed next. Okay, DeepSeek, Stargate, and a new AI arms race. Here we go.

First, let's zoom out a bit for some context on how the AI industry got to where it is today and why DeepSeek has proven to be so disruptive to what everyone thought they knew. Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, AI executives have been clamoring nonstop about the need for more compute, specifically the need for more NVIDIA GPUs.