Nvidia's surge, Musk's mega raise & more (November 20, 2025)

Good morning,

Today is all about aggressive AI expansion, from Nvidia’s blowout earnings to the Gulf’s accelerating compute ambitions and a major federal push to centralize AI policy. At the same time, big music labels, space billionaires, and global investors are shaping what the next wave of AI applications looks like. It is a day of consolidation, coordination, and a whole lot of capital flowing into the ecosystem.

Let’s dig in👇

💰 Money, Chips & Mega-Deals

💹 Nvidia shatters expectations on AI chip demand

Markets watched closely as Nvidia reported record quarterly revenue of about $57 billion driven by AI data center chips. The company emphasized that Blackwell demand is still far above supply, calming fears of a broader AI slowdown. It reinforces Nvidia’s position as the central tollbooth for AI compute with no clear challenger catching up.

🤝 Musk and Huang unveil massive Saudi AI partnership

Elon Musk and Jensen Huang announced a 500 megawatt AI data center in Saudi Arabia supporting xAI and powered by Nvidia hardware. The project tightens ties between xAI and the Gulf’s rapidly growing AI sector while adding significant new compute capacity. It positions Saudi Arabia as an increasingly essential partner to U S tech giants looking for scale.

💸 xAI reportedly raising $15B at a $230B valuation

Musk’s xAI is reportedly in advanced talks to raise $15 billion, lifting the company’s valuation to around $230 billion. This more than doubles its valuation from just months earlier, signaling intense investor appetite for frontier model labs. The round would place xAI firmly among the highest-valued AI companies globally and supercharge its training roadmap.

📜 Policy, Media & Everyday AI

🎵 Warner Music and Udio turn a lawsuit into a deal

Warner Music Group said it has settled its copyright lawsuit with Udio and signed a licensing partnership for a 2026 AI music platform. Rather than continuing in court, Warner is opting to feed licensed catalogs into generative systems. It is another step toward labels shifting from resistance to strategic AI collaboration.

🕌 Gulf AI chip greenlight rewires the compute map

U S officials approved exports of advanced Nvidia chips to partners in Saudi Arabia and the UAE following high-level diplomatic meetings. The move opens the door for tens of thousands of top-tier GPUs to flow into Gulf mega-projects. It accelerates the region’s push to become a global AI compute hub with deep U S-aligned infrastructure.

⚖️ Trump team moves to preempt state AI rules

The Trump administration is circulating a draft executive order aimed at limiting states’ ability to establish their own AI regulations. The plan would rely on federal preemption, funding restrictions, and litigation to bring AI rules under Washington’s control. Companies could eventually see a more unified national framework, though state-federal clashes are almost guaranteed.

🛠️ Tools of the Day

→ Guideflow - Create interactive product demos and step by step onboarding flows
→ Dimension - Context aware AI coworker that automates workflows across your tools
→ Spine - Infinite AI canvas to orchestrate hundreds of models visually

💬 Prompt of the Day

You are an AI advisor for an operations team drowning in manual processes. Identify five workflows we could automate immediately, then describe the exact inputs, outputs, connected tools, risks, and a simple MVP version for each that could ship in one week.

⚡ Quick Hits

→ Sortera is turning America’s scrap aluminum problem into cash with AI sorting
→ Finland’s NestAI lands €100M and partners with Nokia on defense AI
→ Function Health closes $298M for its medical intelligence platform
→ Google opens new AI engineering center in Taiwan
→ Amazon’s Prime Video is adding AI generated TV show recap videos

🧾 TLDR

Nvidia’s blowout earnings, Gulf chip approvals, and the expanding Saudi tech alliance underscore how concentrated the global compute race is becoming. Meanwhile, Washington is moving to reassert federal control over AI rules, and the entertainment world is shifting from legal fights to AI partnerships. The biggest throughline, power players in hardware, capital, and policy are all accelerating at once.

Cheers,
David