Good morning. It's Tuesday, September 8, and we're covering Anthropic’s $517 billion compute push, the dispute over who owns AI copyright payments, and Jensen Huang’s claim that AGI has arrived.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang says “AGI has arrived,” crediting OpenAI’s new Astra model and the NVIDIA chips used to train it. Huang congratulated OpenAI as the company rolls Astra, though critics argue the poorly defined AGI label lacks clear scientific evidence. NVIDIA reported $96.2 billion in quarterly revenue in August, including $89 billion from data centers.

Thousands of authors could receive $3,000 per pirated book, but some fear publishers may claim part of the money. Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement covers more than 482,000 books used to train its AI systems. Authors and publishers are filing competing ownership claims as administrators verify rights, exposing gaps in records for titles whose rights have reverted.

AI companies are pouring $265 million into the U.S. midterms as voters push back against the data centers powering the industry. Only 20% of Americans support new data center construction, while concerns over electricity costs and water use are reshaping races across party lines. Spending continues to rise, even as candidates distance themselves from the industry.

AI labs are releasing updates so quickly that users and companies are struggling to keep up. Anthropic, Meta, Google and OpenAI all launched model updates in one week as firms compete for a share of a projected $2.59 trillion in AI spending this year. Enterprise teams are spending more time comparing costs and capabilities to avoid falling behind.

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Arm CEO Rene Haas says AI could help cure cancer within our lifetime, arguing that increasingly powerful computers will eventually be able to model cells, humans and the way cancer interacts with DNA at a level that remains too complex today. Researchers echoed AI’s potential to dramatically accelerate drug development, although they stressed that high-quality biological data may matter more than simply building ever-larger models.

Haas also said chip shortages are already constraining AI’s progress, with demand for data-center hardware outstripping supply. He expects AI-powered humanoid robots to become widespread within five years and dismissed predictions of mass job destruction as overstated, arguing that new opportunities will offset many displaced roles. → Read the full article here.

Anthropic has reportedly secured computing-capacity contracts worth an estimated $517 billion over the past 11 months, according to an analysis by The Information. The deals reportedly add at least 14.8 gigawatts of capacity, including an estimated 11 GW commitment involving Amazon and Google valued at more than $300 billion over a decade.

The reported commitments far exceed the $180 billion in server leasing costs through 2029 that Anthropic presented to investors last December, underscoring the scale of its infrastructure expansion ahead of an anticipated initial public offering. The estimates are not Anthropic's publicly disclosed totals, and several contract values and capacity figures remain subject to uncertainty. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)

AMD introduced the Threadripper Halo Station at IFA 2026, a liquid-cooled workstation designed to run AI models with more than one trillion parameters locally. The system pairs a 96-core Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX processor with up to four Instinct MI350P accelerators, providing as much as 576GB of HBM3E memory. Each accelerator includes 144GB of memory and delivers 4TB/s of memory bandwidth, while the two-card system demonstrated at IFA offered 288GB. → Read the full article here.

France Rallies to Save Cinema (Paywall): France and South Korea pledged €1B to support filmmakers as streaming and AI reshape cinema.

AI Elevates the CISO: AI-driven cyberattacks are pushing security chiefs into boardrooms and driving demand for experienced leaders.

Malaysia Eyes Huawei AI Chips (Paywall): Malaysia is considering Huawei chips for a national AI project despite U.S. warnings over Chinese technology.

China Eyes Humanoid Robots for War: Military researchers are studying humanoids for urban assaults and infiltration as combat uses advance.

Seattle Times and Newsday Sue AI Firms: The publishers accuse OpenAI and Microsoft of using their journalism to train AI.

Altman Predicts the Idea Guy’s Revenge: Sam Altman says AI lets nontechnical founders turn ideas into businesses faster.

Thanks for reading. See you next time!

— Matthew Berman, Nick Wentz & the Forward Future Team