🗞 AMD's AI Chip Breakthrough, Disney's Midjourney Lawsuit, and Meta's Scale Investment

🔎 The Latest on the AI Frontier:

• AMD Unveils Next-Gen AI Chips with OpenAI Partnership for 2026

• Disney and Universal Sue Midjourney Over AI-Generated Character Copies

• Meta Makes $14.3B Investment in Scale AI Data-Labeling Company

• Trump Considers Third Extension of TikTok Ban Deadline

• Venture Firms Invest $250M in Musk's xAI at $113B Valuation

• Google DeepMind's AI Model Predicts Hurricanes 15 Days Ahead

• Other news you might find interesting

💻 AMD announces its next-generation Instinct MI400 series AI chips and Helios rack-scale systems for 2026, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appearing on stage to endorse the technology and confirm his company will use AMD's chips.

• AMD's Helios rack system integrates thousands of MI400 chips into unified "rack-scale" systems that compete directly with Nvidia's upcoming Vera Rubin racks, targeting hyperscale AI clusters spanning entire data centers.

• The company claims significant cost advantages with 40% more AI tokens per dollar than Nvidia chips due to lower power consumption, while current MI355X chips offer seven times more computing power than predecessors.

• Major tech giants including OpenAI, Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft are adopting AMD's AI infrastructure, with Oracle planning clusters of over 131,000 MI355X chips as AMD targets the $500 billion AI chip market expected by 2028.

⚖️ Disney and Universal file a federal lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney, alleging the company operates a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" by creating unauthorized copies of iconic characters including Darth Vader, Elsa, and the Minions.

• The studios claim Midjourney generated "innumerable" copies of copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, Frozen, and Despicable Me franchises, with the AI firm reportedly earning $300 million last year and planning a video service launch.

• Legal experts note the case hinges on whether Midjourney's AI-generated images constitute fair use or creative transformation, as copyright law allows building on existing works if something new is added to the original material.

• The lawsuit reflects Hollywood's complex relationship with AI technology, as studios simultaneously embrace AI for voice alteration and de-aging effects in Oscar-contending films while seeking protection against unauthorized use of their intellectual property.

🚀 Meta has made a massive $14.3 billion investment in data-labeling company Scale AI, acquiring a 49% stake and valuing the startup at $29 billion while bringing CEO Alexandr Wang on board to boost its AI capabilities.

• Meta's strategic investment represents one of the largest AI acquisitions to date, as the social media giant seeks to close the gap with competitors like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic after losing 4.3% of its top talent to rival AI labs last year.

• Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang will transition to Meta to lead superintelligence efforts, while remaining as a board director at Scale AI, which will continue operating as an independent entity under interim CEO Jason Droege.

• The deal highlights the critical importance of high-quality training data in AI development, with Scale AI having established itself as a key supplier to leading AI labs by recently hiring PhD scientists and senior engineers to generate premium datasets for frontier AI models.

📱 President Trump is reportedly preparing to extend TikTok's deadline for a third time as the current 75-day reprieve expires on June 19, continuing to delay enforcement of the U.S. ban while seeking a sale to American buyers.

• Trump has already granted two 75-day extensions since taking office in January, after TikTok briefly went dark for American users before being restored when he promised executive action to delay the Supreme Court-upheld ban.

• White House negotiations for transferring TikTok ownership to American investors have stalled since Trump imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese imports in April, though the same deal framework remains with Trump seeking a 50% U.S. government stake.

• Major tech companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian have joined separate bids to acquire the app from Chinese parent company ByteDance, which serves 170 million American users.

💰 Venture capital firms including TPG, ARK Invest, and Sequoia Capital are investing $250 million in Elon Musk's xAI through a tender offer valuing the company at $113 billion, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.

• The tender offer allows current and former xAI employees to sell shares to investors, separate from ongoing discussions where investors have considered putting up to $20 billion into the company at valuations reaching $120 billion.

• xAI develops the Grok chatbot that competes directly with Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and other AI offerings from tech giants Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet in the rapidly expanding AI market.

• The investment highlights xAI's aggressive valuation growth since Musk merged the AI company with X (formerly Twitter) earlier this year, positioning it as a major competitor in the AI arms race alongside his role as Tesla CEO.

🌪️ Google DeepMind launches an experimental AI hurricane forecasting model that can predict both storm path and intensity up to 15 days in advance, marking the first time the U.S. National Hurricane Center will incorporate AI predictions into its operational workflow.

• The AI system delivers five-day track forecasts averaging 140 kilometers closer to actual storm positions than leading European models, while generating 15-day predictions in just one minute versus hours for traditional physics-based systems.

• DeepMind's model simultaneously predicts both storm trajectory and intensity using training data from nearly 5,000 observed cyclones over 45 years, potentially providing earlier warnings for rapidly intensifying storms like Hurricane Otis in 2023.

• The partnership validates AI weather forecasting's transition from research to real-world application, with the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season serving as the testing ground for technology addressing $1.4 trillion in cyclone damages over the past 50 years.

More news you might find interesting:

• Security researchers discovered "EchoLeak," the first zero-click AI vulnerability in Microsoft 365 Copilot that allows attackers to steal sensitive data without any user interaction.

• TensorWave becomes one of the first cloud providers to deploy AMD's new Instinct MI355X GPUs, offering customers up to 25% efficiency gains and 40% cost reductions for AI workloads.

• Mattel (manufacturer of Barbie toys) partners with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT technology into its iconic toy brands, promising AI-powered "smart play experiences" for children by the end of 2025.

• AMD launches its Instinct MI350 Series accelerator chips, delivering 4x faster AI compute and 35x better inferencing performance while targeting the growing AI inference market with open-source alternatives to Nvidia's closed systems.

• A massive global internet outage hit major platforms including Spotify, Discord, Twitch, Google services, and Nintendo Switch Online on June 12, caused by simultaneous disruptions at infrastructure giants Cloudflare and Google Cloud.

• ByteDance and SenseTime announce new AI model updates as China's artificial intelligence market intensifies competition, joining DeepSeek, Baidu, and Alibaba in the race to enhance AI services.

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