China Export Controls, Jeremy Giffon Breaks Silence, Alex Hormozi in the Ultradome | Josh Zoffer, John McElhone, Deena Shakir, Hussein Fazal, John Nay

China Weighs Limiting Overseas Access to Its Top AI Models

Funding and deals

• SK Hynix. The chipmaker plans a Nasdaq share sale of about $28bn, with Situational Awareness possibly taking up to $7bn of it.
• Norm AI. The AI legal and compliance company behind Norm Law LLP raised $120m at a $1.2bn valuation, with Coastal Ventures investing.
• Super.com. The consumer savings company raised a $65m Series D led by TPG at a $1.2bn valuation, serving households earning under $100,000.
• Fiserv debit networks. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC and other big banks are reportedly exploring a purchase of Fiserv's Star and Excel debit networks.
• 1001. The Gulf-based startup led by Jordan-born founder Bilal raised a $30m Series A preempted by Lux Capital, the firm's first Gulf deal.

Guest interviews

• Alex Hormozi, founder of Acquisition.com and author. Acquisition.com began as a cash-flow family office that made about 24 deals in 24 months, and its advisory practice did $36m of EBITDA in its first year. He says the firm is about thirty days from closing a gigantic deal and uses AI to match several hundred landing pages against several hundred ads. He urges owners to build one good business, pointing to med spas, and says the simplest media strategy is the whole truth.
• Josh Zoffer, head of research at CIV. He argues data centers are the industrial test of the era and that the US is losing supply chains in rare earths and permanent magnets. He cites a reported $295bn Chinese fund for data center construction.
• John McElhone, founder of American Turbines. American Turbines is building one-megawatt natural gas turbines that could power just over a thousand homes, with fewer than 40 parts. He says traditional turbines descend from aircraft designs, and the aim is mass manufacturing in the spirit of Henry Ford's Model T.

News

• China weighs limiting overseas access to its top AI models. Reuters reports preliminary meetings with top tech firms including Alibaba and DeepSeek. John Coogan argues that open sourcing near frontier capabilities has generally benefited China.
• US restricted Anthropic's top models, then eased some. The Trump administration limited access to Anthropic's most advanced models before lifting some controls after added safety mitigations. OpenAI reportedly faced government pressure over its next frontier models.
• Meta launches Muse Image, its first MSL image model. It pairs with Muse Spark and is live in the Meta AI app, with Muse video planned. Tyler notes Meta FAIR released image models in 2023.