Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is crisscrossing Europe with a multibillion-dollar checkbook and a grand ambition: Make his company the indispensable backbone of the global AI economy, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: As fears of an AI bubble rattle Wall Street, Huang is working to spread the boom beyond the U.S. and China — courting governments, bankrolling startups and cultivating massive new markets for Nvidia's chips.

🖼️ The big picture: The godfather of AI is trying to single-handedly build a new market for Nvidia chips, betting that governments and institutions around the world will want their own, highly customized data centers running open models.

• If it works, it could shore up demand for Nvidia chips just as another big customer group — neoclouds — appears financially shaky.

Part showman, part salesman, Huang has spent the past week preaching the gospel of AI across Europe ahead of a keynote this morning at Nvidia's flagship conference in Berlin.

• In France, Huang announced investments in four startups and joked, whisky glass in hand, that he's "the biggest VC in Europe." President Emmanuel Macron welcomed him to Paris, while France's economy minister compared the AI revolution to the Gold Rush.
• In Britain, Huang channeled Oprah Winfrey while announcing stakes in five startups. "I am giving you money! And I am giving you money! And I am giving you money!" he shouted from the stage of a converted London church.
• In Sweden, Huang unveiled a supercomputer backed by the country's industrial elite, likening Nvidia's technology to a "time machine" capable of compressing years of scientific research into days.
• In Germany, Huang challenged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to loosen Europe's regulatory instincts. "There's nothing to regulate if the industry doesn't thrive," he warned Monday. "Give Germany a chance. Give this industry a chance."

🔬 Zoom in: At the heart of Huang's global strategy is "sovereign AI" — the idea that every nation should build and control its own AI infrastructure, data and models, rather than depend on U.S. or Chinese tech giants.

• For Huang, the prize is a vast new class of customers, including entire countries that see AI infrastructure as an economic and national security imperative.

👀 What to watch: Huang has emerged as the AI industry's chief cheerleader during periods of market turmoil, countering predictions of a bubble with assurances that demand is still accelerating.

• His Berlin keynote offers another chance to calm investors by arguing that the next wave of AI spending will come from governments treating the technology as a national necessity, not a speculative bet.

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Republicans and Democrats are flooding the midterm airwaves with explosive TV ads accusing their opponents of protecting pedophiles and child sexual abusers, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

• Why it matters: The advertising blitz underscores the lingering power of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which has fueled distrust of powerful figures and pushed allegations of child sexual abuse to the forefront of national politics.

The controversy over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files — including allegations that officials sought to protect powerful figures by not releasing all of the files — has kept the issue in the headlines.

• The midterm ads that have followed have been bipartisan and are playing out in state and federal races.

🧮 By the numbers: Since Sept. 1, candidates and outside groups have aired at least $70 million in TV ads mentioning pedophilia, Epstein and allegations related to child sexual abuse, according to AdImpact.

• Of the 118 ads identified, 63 were sponsored by Democrats, 52 by Republicans and three by independents. Keep reading.

Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for Ohio governor is pouring $4 million into a bombshell ad in which his opponent's estranged mother attacks her daughter — doubling down on the message despite fierce bipartisan backlash.

• Amy Acton has said her mom sided with her stepfather after he sexually assaulted Acton when she was 12.

After the ad began appearing yesterday on social media, many fellow Republicans urged Ramaswamy to distance his campaign from it.

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Anthropic's impending IPO will test a jittery Wall Street, but investors say the timing isn't optional, Axios AI+ co-author Madison Mills writes.

• The reason is simple math: The AI giant has grown too big for private fundraising.

Why it matters: Top AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are racking up 12-figure spending commitments, straining the financial system's ability to keep up with a buildout that rivals America's railroads or interstate highways.

• Anthropic's computing commitments could reach $750 billion in the coming years, according to a draft IPO prospectus seen by The Wall Street Journal.

🔭 Zoom in: Investors say only public markets can raise money at that scale.

• OpenAI's most recent round, the biggest in history, took months to secure more than $120 billion — a feat unlikely to be repeated in this market.

🔮 What's next: Anthropic is expected to go public before Thanksgiving. A strong debut could help reset investor angst about the AI boom.

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More than 12.6 million Americans have already cast ballots in the midterm elections, according to the University of Florida Election Lab's tracker.

• Georgia and Virginia lead reporting states in early turnout as a share of all ballots cast in the 2022 midterms, Axios' David Adkins and Herb Scribner write.

Signs of strong early turnout are also emerging in other states.

• In Texas, Dallas County reported a record 76,079 in-person votes on Monday, the first day of early voting.
• In North Carolina, early voting was running 37% ahead of the same point in the 2022 midterms as of Oct. 18, with registered Democrats casting more than twice as many ballots as Republicans.

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White House envoy Steve Witkoff will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg today and present him with an updated proposal to end the war in Ukraine, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

• President Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner will join the meeting virtually.

Why it matters: The White House hopes Putin will show more willingness to compromise after Trump agreed to lift sanctions on Russian diesel sales and took other steps welcomed by Moscow.

Zelensky said yesterday that the next step should be a trilateral meeting between him, Putin and Trump — something Russia has refused to do so far.

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Executives are twice as likely as rank-and-file workers to trust AI over their own judgment, Axios' Emily Peck writes from a new survey by Charter, a workplace research company.

• 32.8% of execs said that they trust AI more. That number was just 16.3% for individual contributors.

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President Trump is pushing aides to evict the press from the White House and has talked about replacing the briefing room with an indoor swimming pool, The New York Times' Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write.

• Trump pitched the idea to former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in one of her final meetings with him in the Oval Office, telling her it'd be her "last legacy."

Trump has "told aides he would prefer to bring back the indoor pool President Franklin D. Roosevelt added in 1933 as therapy for his polio-afflicted legs; President Richard Nixon later covered it over to make room for the news media."

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✈️ CNN is threatening further legal action against the Trump administration for denying its journalists access to Air Force One. The White House continues to bar the network from the pool that travels with the president. Keep reading.

Beginning Friday, the Tampa Bay Rays will face the Milwaukee Brewers in a World Series featuring two of baseball's smallest spenders, just weeks before a labor standoff threatens to halt the sport, Axios' David Adkins writes.

• Why it matters: MLB owners argue that baseball needs a salary cap to give smaller teams a fighting chance. But a championship matchup between two budget teams gives players fresh ammunition to argue that the current system works.

🏟️ State of play: Owners proposed a salary cap and salary floor in May — the league currently has neither — which the MLB players' union is expected to reject outright.

• A work stoppage threatens to derail baseball's momentum after a season marked by rising TV viewership and the successful introduction of a system for challenging umpires' ball-and-strike calls.

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