Nvidia invests $100 billion in OpenAI to fuel its computing power. A landmark partnership announced on 23 September 2025 will see Nvidia commit up to $100 billion to OpenAI, enabling the deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of AI data‐center capacity powered by millions of Nvidia GPUs. The deal, structured as progressive investments tied to each gigawatt deployed, underscores the pivotal role of hardware in scaling generative‐AI research. By securing exclusive access to cutting‐edge accelerators, OpenAI positions itself for a new era of infrastructure‐driven AI breakthroughs, while Nvidia cements its status as the preeminent supplier of AI systems (euronews.com).
“The first gigawatt of Nvidia systems will be deployed in the second half of 2026 on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform.”
Can philosophy help us get a grip on the consequences of AI?. In this 4,800-word Aeon essay, philosopher Seth Lazar examines how generative AI agents are reshaping human social fabrics, from decision-making and creativity to collective norms. Drawing on classical ethical theories and contemporary case studies, the essay argues that philosophy offers essential frameworks for anticipating and guiding the profound societal shifts wrought by AI as “executive centres” that integrate learning and action. By reengaging with questions of responsibility, autonomy and meaning, Lazar contends, we can better navigate AI’s promise and perils (aeon.co).
“Generative AI agents will change our society in weird, wonderful and worrying ways. Can philosophy help us get a grip on them?”
It’s often said that a successful picture ‘captures the essence’ of a subject. But a great photograph does so much more. Daniel Star’s 3,600-word Aeon essay dismantles the myth that photographs mirror an immutable “essence.” By tracing the medium’s evolution—from Julia Margaret Cameron’s blurred‐soft portraits to contemporary street photography—Star shows how creative choices in exposure, composition and context transform images into metaphors of experience, rather than mere snapshots of reality. The essay explores how intentional ambiguity invites viewers into a shared act of interpretation, highlighting photography’s power to reveal narrative depths beyond surface veracity (aeon.co).
“Photographs ‘capture’ scenes only in a highly attenuated sense. We do not see the world in the way we see scenes in photographs.”
The Strange Physics That Gave Birth to AI. Elise Cutts’s Quanta Magazine feature uncovers how mid-20th-century spin-glass physics sparked the revival of neural networks. By mapping John Hopfield’s adaptation of statistical‐mechanics models—originally devised for disordered alloys—to associative memory, the article reveals the surprising lineage from condensed‐matter research to modern deep learning. Cutts highlights how insights into “energetic landscapes” enabled networks to encode and recall patterns without explicit address lines, laying the conceptual groundwork for today’s AI architectures (quantamagazine.org).
“Spin glasses themselves turned out to have no imaginable material application, but the theories devised to explain their strangeness would ultimately spark today’s revolution in artificial intelligence.”
Digital art is what you can do, not how you did it. Tom Uglow’s Aeon essay (2,700 words) argues that the vitality of digital art lies in the creative possibilities unlocked by computational tools, rather than fetishizing the technology itself. Through case studies of generative installations by Olafur Eliasson and Ma Yansong, Uglow shows how artists leverage algorithms to craft immersive experiences that transcend tool-specific aesthetics. The piece champions an approach where artists “design systems that surprise them,” positioning digital art as a dynamic dialogue between maker and medium that pushes cultural boundaries (aeon.co).
“Digital art and culture mustn’t get caught up in the tools of its making or it will never transport us somewhere new.”