AI Data Center Spending Faces $1.1 Trillion Break-Even Test; OpenAI Foundation Backs Biology Data

The OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit parent of OpenAI, announced this week that it will fund an effort to create “high-quality scientific datasets” for medical AI, MIT Technology Review reported. The idea came from Ruxandra Teslo, a policy analyst, who posted last year that AI needs far more information to make important breakthroughs in curing disease. She proposed using data from failed biotech companies, arguing that bidding at bankruptcy proceedings could yield detailed regulatory filings, manufacturing strategies and safety data. She called the concept “biotech’s lost archive.”

MIT Technology Review also made available on demand a Roundtable discussion about AI’s extinction threat. The publication said warnings about AI extinction have become widespread in Silicon Valley as frontier models become more capable. Executive editor Niall Firth, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and AI reporter Grace Huckins examined the arguments behind those warnings, what AI extinction could actually mean, how seriously the risks should be taken and what can be done to reduce them. Subscribers can watch a recording of the discussion.

A startup called Generation Lab claims it has found a drug combination that can make blood young, according to MIT Technology Review Narrated. The company says its rejuvenation treatment “blocks the systemic spread of aging in the bloodstream, reawakens the body’s own repair mechanism, and restores health and youth to multiple tissues.” The approach is based on research by scientific founder Irina Conboy, who found that joining the circulatory systems of old and young mice improved the old animals’ ability to heal from injury. Conboy now says she has found a combination of two existing drugs that can produce youthful effects without any bodily fluid exchange, but Generation Lab will not reveal what the drugs are.

Among other technology news highlighted by MIT Technology Review, Nvidia and Meta CEOs Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg rejected calls for a coordinated AI slowdown. Huang said new AI safety laws are unnecessary, while Zuckerberg claimed competition will push AI labs toward safety. The FTC chair warned against giving AI companies antitrust waivers after Anthropic called for a safety exemption; Nvidia’s CEO also criticized calls for new antitrust laws, and the United States remains divided over AI regulation.

A Chinese hacking firm has used AI to analyze stolen secrets, turning hacked government data into intelligence reports, according to the newsletter. In a cancer study, “smart” nanoparticles delivered mRNA to tumors and reprogrammed cells to attack tumors in mice, even as federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA. A digital fly brain has been taught to drive, trade bitcoin and play Doom online; the simulated brain is a map of a fruit fly’s 166,000 neurons. The Senate blocked new crypto rules amid a fight over Trump that demanded tougher ethics rules around Trump’s crypto holdings, a move described as a major blow to the crypto industry.