Reports

Wed, May 14 - OpenAI's $500M Stargate Data Center Faces Investment Woes

Hak

14 May 2025 — 3 min read

It's Wednesday, May 14, 2025, and you're reading the Agentive Daily Report.

Busy People's Section

OpenAI's $500M Stargate data center is delayed as investor hesitation grows in turbulent markets.

Google launches the AI Futures Fund, offering investments and infrastructure to startups building on DeepMind tools.

Perplexity AI is raising $500M at a $14B valuation and launching Comet, an AI web browser that challenges Google and Apple.

AI tool FaceAge predicts biological age and cancer survival from selfies, outperforming doctors in some prognoses.

FDA's aggressive generative AI plan for drug and device evaluation sparks new regulatory debate.

Amazon's advanced warehouse robot matches humans in performance but exposes a 14% failure rate in real-world deployment.

China faces data center overcapacity as AI hardware needs shift post-DeepSeek R1, with 80% of new compute now sitting idle.

Today's Top Stories

OpenAI Stargate: $500M Data Center Stalls in Shaky Markets

OpenAI’s megaproject to build the $500M Stargate data center appears to be faltering under investor caution caused by global economic uncertainty. This skepticism, despite the AI arms race over compute, signals that appetite for massive speculative infrastructure is hitting a wall, especially as hardware needs are fast-evolving. The delay won’t just slow OpenAI’s roadmap; it may prompt a broader rethink in how aggressively the industry bets on centralizing compute versus optimizing for efficiency or decentralization.

Google’s AI Futures Fund Makes a Play for Startups

Google is stepping up its startup engagement with the launch of the AI Futures Fund. What’s meaningful here isn’t just the deep pockets—in addition to access to DeepMind models, the offer of cloud credits and expert support shows Google’s desperation to curry favor with next-gen builders in a heated market. For founders, this is an opportunity to access technical resources and potentially leapfrog competitors, but it also deepens ecosystem dependence on Google’s tech stack.

FaceAge: AI Surpasses Docs in Survival Prognosis

Researchers at Mass General Brigham introduced FaceAge, a model that estimates biological age and cancer survival odds using facial images. Tested on thousands of cancer patients, FaceAge consistently outperformed doctors in short-term survival prediction and improved clinician accuracy when used as decision support. This is a real-world step change; while it won’t replace doctors, it’s proof that new AI solutions can quietly redefine clinical decision-making, provided we can navigate the ethical and adoption hurdles ahead.

Fast Forward

Perplexity AI Emerges As Search Challenger: Raising new funds at a $14B valuation, Perplexity is taking its next shot at Google/Apple search dominance with an AI-native browser, Comet. Watch this one closely: the browser could become an AI-forward gateway with mass consumer reach.
FDA Fast-Tracks GenAI Drug Evaluation: The FDA’s new plan to integrate generative AI into drug and device assessments will accelerate market entry but stirs controversy about the pace of regulatory change and oversight quality. The question isn’t if, but how safely, AI will touch medical approvals.
China’s $500B Data Center Hangover: China’s mad dash to AI infrastructure is now backfiring, with over 80% of new data center capacity unused as models pivot from training-heavy to inference-heavy hardware, reshaping resource allocation globally.
Amazon’s Robot Hits Real-World Ceiling: Amazon’s new warehouse robot hits high human parity, yet persistent 14% error rates underscore the gap between AI lab demos and messy physical realities in logistics.
AI Decodes Race from Heartbeats: Alarm is rising as a study claims AI can infer racial identity from heart scans with up to 96% accuracy—a technical feat reigniting debate on privacy, bias, and unintended consequences in clinical AI.

New Tools Discovered

Resume Maker: Instantly build professional resumes in minutes, no design experience needed.
CheatGPT: Study helper and test-prep platform offering AI-powered cheat codes for exams and assignments.
Mapondo: AI audio guides designed for travelers, offering rich contextual storytelling on the go.
GoBuildMy.App: Chat-based tool to generate native iOS/Android apps without coding.
Matter AI: Automated code reviews targeting bugs, security, and performance for faster, safer releases.

Discover more tools at Agentive.Directory,

That's a wrap for today! Thank you for reading this report.

Have thoughts on today's edition? Hit reply and let us know what you're thinking. Or if you've discovered a cool AI tool we should feature, drop us a line.

Until tomorrow,
Hak from Agentive.Studio