🔌 Cisco's AI Pipeline Blows Past Forecasts
Cisco's latest earnings call was, in a word, bullish. Riding a wave of hyperscaler demand - think Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet - the networking giant raked in over $2B in AI infrastructure orders for FY 2025. That’s more than double what they had budgeted for. Roughly $800M of that landed in Q4 alone. They're also eyeing sovereign AI clusters as a new frontier (which, honestly, feels like a buzzword until it isn’t).
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💰 Despite Policy Drama, AI Chips Still Flowing to China
So here’s the twist: the Trump admin is letting Nvidia and AMD resume AI chip sales to China - with a 15% tax funneled back to the U.S. Treasury. Investors? Barely blinked. Markets moved slightly upward on Nvidia, brushing off the geopolitics. Analysts are whispering about rare-earth angles and long-view tech trade-offs, but for now, Wall Street sees green.
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🏛️ Colorado's AI Law Faces a Rewrite - Sort Of
Colorado’s trying to plug a billion-dollar budget hole, and its landmark AI legislation might be collateral damage. Governor Polis wants to dial back parts of the law - set to kick in Feb 2026 - arguing it's too expensive as written. Skeptics in the Senate see it differently: they’re worried it’s an excuse to gut the bill. Still, talks are underway. Nobody’s slamming the door just yet.
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🇮🇳 Indian Founders Warned: AI’s Not a Moat by Itself
At the ET Soonicorns Summit, startup leaders got a cold splash of realism. Generative AI? It's everywhere now. Differentiation? Not so easy. Speakers stressed the need for “real defensibility” - AI moats that can’t be replicated overnight. Translation: clever tech alone won’t save you. Build something people can’t copy.
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🍟 Drive-Thru, Hold the Humans
Michael Chorey - the brains behind Wendy’s FreshAI - is now co-leading Presto IQ, aiming to push AI voice assistants into every drive-thru lane nationwide. Wendy’s already has it in 300 locations, and plans to double that by December. Presto’s also testing the tech at places like Carl’s Jr. and Yoshinoya. Human order-takers? May not last the decade.
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🧪 AI Helping Doctors - But Maybe Also Hurting?
According to a Lancet study, endoscopists who leaned too heavily on AI assistance saw their own diagnostic skills fade... kinda fast. Adenoma detection dropped from 28% to 22% after six months of AI use. Researchers call it the “Google Maps effect” - you trust the tool so much, you forget how to navigate on your own.
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🧠 Meta’s AI Starts to Think for Itself?
Mark Zuckerberg's recent policy paper made a few eyebrows lift: Meta’s latest AI systems are now self-improving without human help. That’s a massive leap - and maybe a baby step toward ASI (Artificial Superintelligence). Zuckerberg stays optimistic but cautious, pushing for frameworks before breakthroughs outpace oversight.
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