LAS VEGAS — AI energy needs will accelerate commercial fusion power by "two or three decades," said Rob Roy, founder and CEO of data center heavyweight Switch.
Why it matters: Tech and data center heavyweights are helping fund and signing power deals with fusion startups, in addition to other nuclear agreements.
AI is far too transformative for society — and disruptive to legacy industries — to fixate on a near-term bubble, some of the world's top private investors said at Axios BFD on Tuesday.
The big picture: Financial markets may be nervous now. But the people who invest billions for the long term believe in what they're seeing.
"I was in Silicon Valley in '98, '99. I saw what happened with the dotcom era. I saw what happened with mobile, saw what happened with cloud computing. This surpasses all of them and more," said Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, one of the world's top venture capitalists.
"You have so many industries that are relatively ossified and ripe for disruption," Botha said. "And AI isn't just a new distribution mechanism or a new interface. It is fundamentally a set of capabilities that can upend industries."
Case in point: Creatives fear the impact AI could have on entertainment and the arts, but those who are using it right now to change businesses say rejecting it isn't the answer.
"The reality is, the world's not going to stop and AI is coming, so you have a choice, you could put your head in the sand or you can embrace it," said Gerry Cardinale, managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners, which helped finance the Skydance acquisition of Paramount.
"I don't think AI is going to replace Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. I just don't think that's happening. And, and similarly it's not gonna replace Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. However, it has to be harnessed."
Reality check: Even those deepest in AI and the world of large language models (LLM) concede that there could be some froth, as Google CEO Sundar Pichai did when he told the BBC Tuesday there was some "irrationality" in the market.
"I think we're in an LLM bubble, and I think the LLM bubble might be bursting next year," said Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue, whose company helps people build models for AI.
But even so, Delangue said, LLMs are "just a subset of AI" when it comes to broader applications across science, technology and media.
The bottom line: "'The bubble' is a pejorative term," Sequoia's Botha said.
In the long run, he said, it's the fundamental change to the way so many industries operate that matters.
Fox News Media has been working with Palantir for the past year to build a suite of custom AI newsroom tools alongside its journalists, Fox News Digital president and editor-in-chief Porter Berry told Axios.
Why it matters: The Palantir relationship is strictly commercial, granting broad access to Fox News Media's workflow to facilitate the AI transformation, without giving up its proprietary intellectual property.
Microsoft is rolling out a new system that gives security leaders a way to track all the autonomous AI agents roaming on their systems and the data they're tapping.
Why it matters: The new tool provides a way for security teams to keep an eye on agents — including employees' unsanctioned creations — as concerns mount about agents going rogue.
Google on Tuesday released a preview of Gemini 3 Pro, the newest version of its AI model that will power the company's core search engine and the Gemini app.
Why it matters: The rollout builds on Google's recent momentum, including reports that a future custom model could power Apple's Siri.
Three startup CEOs are challenging the notion that nuclear waste is just something to bury.
Why it matters: Oklo's Jacob DeWitte, Curio's Ed McGinnis and SHINE Technologies' Greg Piefer are gaining attention from and influence with the Trump administration as well as other companies.
