Hi there,
Welcome to the 126th edition of Heartcore Insights, curated with 🖤 by the Heartcore Team.
If you missed the past newsletters, you can catch up here. Now, let’s dive in!
All in on AGI – Google I/O 2025
At I/O this week, Google dropped its usual cautious rhetoric: it’s openly pursuing AGI, with Gemini as its vehicle to get there first. In a rare joint appearance, Sergey Brin and Demis Hassabis offered contrasting perspectives on AI’s frontier, Hassabis the methodical scientist vs. Brin the pragmatic technologist, united by their shared conviction that we’re witnessing computing’s most profound inflection point since the internet’s birth.
Perhaps the interview’s clearest takeaway: we’re still “one or two breakthroughs” away from AGI, with the recent thinking paradigm (DeepThink’s parallel reasoning) representing only half of one such breakthrough. Hassabis redefined AGI not as matching typical human capabilities (economically significant but intellectually insufficient) but as systems matching “what the human brain as an architecture is able to do” with consistency that would take “months for experts to find holes in,” vs. today’s systems where flaws emerge within minutes.
Most revealing was their agreement that algorithmic advances will ultimately outpace raw computational scaling. While acknowledging the need for more data centers (“turning sand into thinking machines”), Brin noted that historically, algorithmic improvements have beaten Moore’s Law even in simple domains. The real AI race isn’t about who has the most chips, but who can engineer the next conceptual leap.
A quieter but profound takeaway was the discussion around self-improving systems. Hassabis referenced AlphaZero mastering chess in 24 hours through self-play, while cautioning that the “real world is far messier.” The unasked question: could similar self-improvement dynamics accelerate AGI timelines beyond their “five to ten year” estimate? Brin’s closing comment, “anybody who is a computer scientist should not be retired right now”: suggests Google sees a genuine technological discontinuity approaching, one they’re determined to reach first.
Desert Compute – Semianalysis
The US has green lit a wave of AI infrastructure deals across the Gulf, with OpenAI, Nvidia, AMD and others at the centre. Trump, on a high-profile tour through the Middle East, announced a major policy shift: the Biden-era “AI Diffusion Rule,” which restricted exports of advanced chips to countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has been scrapped. In its place is a more permissive framework for so-called “trusted partners.”
The deals came fast. Saudi Arabia will receive several hundred thousand of Nvidia’s most advanced GPUs, including the new GB200 Grace Blackwell systems. AMD also signed a $10B deal to supply AI chips. On the infra side, Amazon, Super Micro and Cisco are providing everything from servers to system integration.
But the biggest headline is in the UAE: OpenAI is partnering with G42 ( a state-backed AI powerhouse) to develop a massive, 5-GW data centre campus outside Abu Dhabi, called “Stargate.” Thats roughly 10X the size of the largest US hyperscale facilities today. It will be powered by Nvidia chips, linked by Oracle’s cloud stack, and is being positioned as one of the world’s largest AI compute hubs.
This is a clean trade. The US gets new demand for its AI hardware and a counterweight to China’s rising influence in the region. The Gulf gets a post-oil strategy: channeling petrodollars into AI infrastructure, and anchoring itself in the next global tech cycle. The region offers what hyperscale AI buildouts desperately need: cheap and abundant power, land and capital willing to move fast.
A couple of loopholes remain: With longstanding ties to China, Gulf states could become indirect channels for compute, despite export controls that often prove porous. Could some of this capacity quietly end up training Chinese models?
What’s clear is that the Gulf is no longer just watching the AI race, it’s building lanes of its own. The two landmark agreements will shift the global balance of power and strengthen U.S. compute availability. This is industrial policy at (hyper)scale: offshoring compute to allies, creating new economic dependencies and expanding the geopolitical map of AI.
OpenAI is coming for hardware with an entry ticket of… $6.5bn, Sam Altman
Should you care about Tabular AI?, Marie Brayer (Fly Ventures)
Synthetic Populations, Rex Woodbury
An Allocator’s Manifesto: Why is every single fund top quartile?, Yavuzhan Yilancioglu (Hummingbird)
🇪🇺 Notable European early-stage rounds
Plakar, a France-based open-source backup and restore platform, raises $3M with Seedcamp - link
MarvelX, a Netherlands-based AI-powered insurance platform, raises $6M with EQT - link
sensmore, a Germany-based robotics startup, using Physical AI to enable autonomous, self-reasoning machines without training, raises $7.3M with Point9 - link
Kota, an Ireland-based HRtech startup, raises $14.5M with with Eurazeo - link
Shakers, a Spain-based tech freelance worker marketplace, raises €14M with Partech - link
Flip, a Germany-based software scale-up focussed on frontline operations, raises 38M with LEA/HV Capital - link
🇺🇸 Notable US early-stage rounds
Filed, an AI-powered tax filing tool provider, raises $15M with Northzone - link
Catena Labs, an AI-native financial institution, raises $18M with A16Z - link
Glass Imaging, a digital imaging startup, raises $20M with Insight Partners/GV - link
Blues, an IoT connectivity startup, raises $25M with Sequoia - link
Clarium, a startup building hospital supply chain software, raises $27M with Northzone/General Catalyst - link
Cognichip, a startup using genAI to accelerate and cheapen chip design, raises $33M with Lux Capital - link
🔭 Notable later stage rounds
Avicena, a US-based startup building microLED chip-to-chip interconnects, raises $65M with Tiger Global - link
Legora, a Sweden-based legaltech startup, raises $80M with ICONIQ/General Catalyst - link
Awardco, a US-based employee engagement and rewards platform, raises $165M with Sixth Street Growth - link
Strava, a US-based fitness app, reaches $2.2B in valuation after raising an undisclosed amount with Sequoia - link
🖤 Heartcore News
Sifted ranked us as top investors in DACH & CEE in 2025. 🚀
Dr. Elina Berglund Scherwitzl, CEO and co-founder of Natural Cycles 🖤, named one of the most powerful women in business 2025 by Dagens Industri! 🔥
Byway 🖤 wins the Travel Startup of the Year by The Bessies. 🏆
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