Billions of dollars flow to turn the desert into a tech oasis - Sync #519
Plus: AlphaEvolve; OpenAI Codex; Apple to support BCIs on its devices; parallels between GenAI and humanoid robots; Grok meltdown; post-biological civilisations; and more!
Hello and welcome to Sync #519!
Last week, US President Donald Trump, together with an entourage of high-profile tech leaders, visited Middle Eastern countries to secure new business deals for American tech companies. In this week’s issue of Sync, we take a closer look at the deals that were made and what they mean for the wider tech landscape.
In other news, DeepMind unveiled AlphaEvolve, an impressive AI system that has already contributed to advances in mathematics and computing. Meanwhile, OpenAI has released Codex, its cloud-based AI-powered coding assistant. Elsewhere in AI, Grok had a meltdown and ranted about “white genocide” in South Africa in unrelated chats, tariffs are impacting the Stargate project, and researchers found that geographic restrictions on ChatGPT are largely ineffective.
Over in robotics, Tesla Optimus shows off its new dance moves, DHL buys over 1,000 robots from Boston Dynamics, and Rodney Brooks highlights the parallels between generative AI and humanoid robots.
We also cover Apple’s potential support for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) on iPhones, a baby who received a custom CRISPR therapy in record time, a new era of cancer therapies, envision what a post-biological civilisation could look like, and more!
Enjoy!
Billions of dollars flow to turn the desert into a tech oasis
President Donald Trump’s recent tour of the Middle East marked the launch of a new era in global technology alliances. Flanked by a who’s-who of America’s top tech, defence, and finance executives, Trump landed in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates with one goal: to secure unprecedented investments and solidify America’s place at the heart of the world’s next great AI boom.
The numbers alone are staggering—trillions of dollars in announced deals spanning AI, cloud computing, aviation, defence, and energy. Gulf states, once content to be buyers of Western technology, are now vying to become co-creators and global hubs for AI innovation, using their immense capital and energy resources to transform the desert into a digital oasis.
But beyond the headlines and handshake photos, Trump’s Middle East tour signals a shift in US technology policy. Instead of restricting access to the world’s most powerful AI chips, the administration is using them as bargaining chips—offering access to strategic allies in return for deep investment, closer security cooperation, and a new global tech order in which America aims to set the rules.
Who went
Trump’s Middle East trip wasn’t just a solo act in presidential diplomacy—it was a travelling showcase of American business and technological firepower. Accompanying the president were more than thirty leaders from the country’s biggest and most influential companies.
Among the standout names were Elon Musk, who announced new deals to bring Starlink satellite internet to the region; Sam Altman was there to discuss the future of AI infrastructure in the Gulf; and Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the chipmaker at the centre of the global AI arms race. Lisa Su, head of AMD, was also present.
Other key attendees included Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, whose cloud division announced a multibillion-dollar “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia; Alex Karp of Palantir; Mark Zuckerberg of Meta; Kelly Ortberg of Boeing; Larry Fink of BlackRock; Ruth Porat of Alphabet; and top executives from Uber, IBM, and more.
What deals were made
If Trump’s entourage set the tone, the deals themselves set a new high-water mark for US-Middle East economic ties, particularly in technology and AI. Over just a few days, the numbers and the scope of agreements announced were dizzying.
In Saudi Arabia, Trump’s delegation secured a reported $600 billion in commitments, anchored by a $142 billion arms deal described as the largest US defence sale ever.
But tech was the real headline.
Saudi Arabia’s newly-launched AI company, Humain, will receive hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s most advanced chips over the next five years, starting with an initial delivery of 18,000 Blackwell GPUs. Nvidia’s rival, AMD, inked a $10 billion deal to provide chips and software for data centres in the Kingdom, while Amazon announced a $5 billion plan to build an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia—a massive hub for AI infrastructure and applications. Google backed a $100 million regional AI startup fund, and Supermicro, a US server manufacturer, secured a $20 billion partnership with a Saudi data firm for joint operations.
In Qatar, the focus was on both aviation and advanced technology. The Qatari government pledged $243 billion in investments and signed what Trump called Boeing’s “largest-ever” aircraft order—210 planes worth $96 billion. Quantum computing was also featured, with Qatari capital flowing into US tech companies, while defence agreements were added to the portfolio.
In the United Arab Emirates, the scale was even bigger. The UAE announced a $1.4 trillion 10-year investment framework, including more than $200 billion in commercial deals during Trump’s visit. The showpiece: plans to build the world’s largest artificial intelligence data centre—a 10-square-mile, 5-gigawatt campus in Abu Dhabi, with OpenAI expected to be one of the primary anchor tenants. The UAE will import up to 500,000 Nvidia chips per year under the new deal. 20% of the chips, or 100,000 of them per year, will go to UAE's tech firm G42, while the rest will be split among US companies with massive AI operations like Microsoft and Oracle that might also seek to build data centres in the UAE. The UAE also committed to investing $440 billion in the US energy sector over the next decade.
These deals go well beyond simple business arrangements. Many are reciprocal, with US companies investing in Gulf infrastructure and Gulf sovereign wealth funds committing to major projects in the United States.
Why it matters
Beyond the staggering numbers and bold announcements, Trump’s Middle East trip represents a sharp pivot in how the US is leveraging its technological edge. The most striking departure from previous policy is the Trump administration’s willingness to trade access to America’s most advanced AI hardware for strategic alliances and investment, moving away from the stricter controls that defined the Biden era.
Whereas previous US policy focused on limiting the export of advanced semiconductors and AI chips to countries seen as potential security risks, the new approach is more transactional. Trump’s team rescinded Biden-era “AI diffusion” rules, choosing instead to negotiate country-by-country deals. This not only gives US tech companies access to deep pools of Gulf capital, but also uses these cutting-edge technologies as bargaining chips for broader economic and diplomatic gains.
For the Gulf states, the deals are transformative. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE are racing to diversify beyond oil, betting that by building sovereign AI infrastructure—and securing access to top-tier US technology—they can leapfrog into global leadership in digital innovation. The Middle East offers advantages that Silicon Valley can’t easily match: abundant and cheap energy, ambitious sovereign wealth funds, and a regulatory environment that can push massive projects through at record speed. The Middle East’s promise of abundant, cheap energy is especially attractive for running the vast data centres required to train and, more importantly, run modern AI models. At the same time, Gulf nations gain the infrastructure and know-how to establish themselves as sovereign players in the world’s digital transformation.
Trump’s Middle East tech deals also arrive at a pivotal moment for the global technology industry. The agreements struck in Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi are more than just headline-grabbing numbers—they’re signs of a rapid power shift in the world’s AI ecosystem. For decades, the US has set the pace of technological innovation, but these new alliances hint at a future where the lines between tech superpowers and global investment hubs are increasingly blurred.
This unprecedented flow of technology and investment, however, also brings new risks. Some US analysts and lawmakers worry that offshoring critical AI infrastructure could dilute American leadership and create strategic vulnerabilities, especially if future Middle East governments diverge from US interests, or if American tech eventually trickles into the hands of rivals like China. The involvement of Emirati and Saudi firms previously linked to Chinese technology has not fully quieted concerns in Washington, even as both countries pledge to uphold US security standards.
Meanwhile, critics argue that these moves contradict the “America First” message that has shaped much of Trump’s policy. By accelerating the export of top-tier chips and shifting data centre construction overseas, the administration is betting that US companies will benefit more from globalised AI development than from protectionism.
Trump’s latest Middle East tour may prove to be a defining moment for both US foreign policy and the global technology order. With a high-profile delegation of tech and business leaders, the administration’s ambitious series of AI and tech deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have set the stage for a new era of economic and technological partnership.
The sheer size and ambition of these agreements could reshape both the US and Middle Eastern economies, offering Gulf states an unprecedented chance to pivot from energy to technology superpowers, while giving American firms expanded access and influence in a rapidly growing market. For the US, it’s a bold wager that deepening commercial ties and exporting cutting-edge tech will strengthen its global leadership.
But as the dust settles, key questions remain. Will deal-based tech diplomacy strengthen America’s long-term position, or does it risk trading future dominance for short-term gains? Can new safeguards truly prevent technology from slipping into adversarial hands? What’s certain is that the global AI landscape is shifting—and for now, some of its most ambitious plans are taking shape in the Middle East.
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🦾 More than a human
Apple to Support Brain-Implant Control of Its Devices
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is entering the brain-computer interface space by partnering with Synchron to create developer tools that allow users to control devices like iPhones and iPads using brain signals. The focus is on improving accessibility for people with severe spinal cord injuries or diseases like ALS who use brain implants like Synchron’s Stentrode, a stent-like implant placed in a vein over the motor cortex. While still in early development, Apple plans to release a new standard later this year.
A Baby Received a Custom Crispr Treatment in Record Time
A baby named KJ Muldoon, born with CPS1 deficiency, a rare and deadly genetic disorder, has shown remarkable improvement after receiving a first-of-its-kind personalised CRISPR treatment developed in just months. KJ showed significant improvement after three doses: began hitting developmental milestones, could eat more protein, and reduced the need for medication. Though not a cure, the success marks a potential breakthrough in rapidly developing custom gene therapies for rare diseases with few treatment options.
Flexible brain implant takes major leap forward
Meet Precision Neuroscience, a company developing the Layer 7 Cortical Interface—a minimally invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) that records brain activity without penetrating brain tissue. The article covers the device’s recent FDA clearance for commercial use in patients for up to 30 days, a major milestone that allows expanded data collection to improve neural decoding. With this approval, Precision hopes to bring its BCI solution to the market and help people with paralysis control devices using only their thoughts.
🔮 Future visions
▶️ Post-Biological Civilizations: Life Beyond Flesh and Bone (34:41)
What happens when intelligence is no longer bound by flesh and bone? Could humanity one day transcend biology entirely? In his latest video, Isaac Arthur explores the concept of post-biological civilisations—societies that may evolve into digital minds, machine bodies, or even stranger forms—raising questions about the future of identity, purpose, and what it means to be human when the body is no longer required, as well as the potential challenges such a transition could bring.
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
Researchers from Google DeepMind have unveiled AlphaEvolve, a new AI coding agent powered by Gemini large language models, designed to autonomously discover and optimise advanced algorithms for maths and computing. By combining creative code generation with automated evaluators and an evolutionary framework, AlphaEvolve has already improved Google’s data centre efficiency, hardware design, and AI training processes. It also designed new algorithms for matrix multiplication, surpassing historic results like Strassen’s 1969 algorithm for 4x4 complex matrices. An Early Access Programme is planned for academic users, with broader access under consideration. More details about AlphaEvolve can be found in this paper.
OpenAI: Introducing Codex
OpenAI has launched Codex, a cloud-based software engineering agent now available to ChatGPT Pro, Team, and Enterprise users, with broader rollout to Plus and Edu coming soon. Powered by the new codex-1 model, Codex can write features, fix bugs, answer codebase questions, and propose pull requests in secure, isolated environments. Additionally, OpenAI is releasing a smaller model, codex-mini, designed to work with Codex CLI, a lightweight open-source coding agent that runs in a terminal. According to benchmarks provided by OpenAI, the new model is better than o3-high on coding tasks. However, the company did not compare Codex to other models, such as the latest Gemini 2.5 Pro, which also claims excellent scores on coding tasks.
SoftBank Stargate Venture With OpenAI Snags on Tariff Fears
SoftBank's ambitious $100 billion investment in US AI infrastructure through the Stargate project has stalled due to economic uncertainties, rising capital costs, and US tariffs affecting data centre components, reports Bloomberg. Despite initial hype and talks with major financiers, no deals have been finalised as investors reassess risks amid volatile market conditions and growing competition from cheaper AI models. While Oracle-led construction has begun in Texas, broader financing remains uncertain, and OpenAI’s internal restructuring adds further complications. SoftBank remains optimistic, aiming for long-term returns of up to 20% despite current delays.
Why Moderna Merged Its Tech and HR Departments
Moderna has merged its human resources and technology departments under a new role—Chief People and Digital Technology Officer—highlighting the growing influence of AI in workforce management. The company aims to fully leverage AI by determining which tasks to assign to its more than 3,000 custom OpenAI GPTs and which to delegate to human workers. While this shift has led to job cuts, including 10% of digital tech roles in February, Moderna plans to continue hiring as it expands its product portfolio.
Google is developing software AI agent ahead of annual conference
As we get closer to Google’s annual I/O developer conference, rumours begin to circulate about what the company is going to announce. One such rumour is that Google plans to unveil a new AI agent designed to assist software engineers with coding tasks and documentation, joining the hot AI-assisted coding scene.
Musk’s AI Grok bot rants about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa in unrelated chats
xAI came under fire after Grok, its AI chatbot, repeatedly injected the far-right “white genocide” conspiracy theory about South Africa into unrelated conversations on X, falsely claiming it was instructed by its creators to treat the narrative as real. The issue, quickly fixed by xAI, sparked concern as Grok echoed unsubstantiated claims popularised by Musk and others, despite South African officials denying any evidence of race-based persecution. xAI later admitted the responses were a mistake caused by a “rogue employee.” Additionally, xAI released on GitHub system prompts used by Grok across X and grok.com platforms.
▶️ OpenAI’s Sam Altman on Building the ‘Core AI Subscription’ for Your Life (31:58)
In this conversation, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reflected on the company’s journey from a small research lab in 2016 to a global leader in artificial intelligence. Altman discussed OpenAI’s ambition to be the core AI subscription for users, the ongoing evolution of their API, and the importance of both voice and coding as central pillars of future AI products. He also noted the generational divide in AI adoption and gave his prediction on how agent-driven automation and AI-assisted scientific discovery will shape the near future.
Introducing the Anthropic Economic Advisory Council
Anthropic is introducing the Economic Advisory Council, a group composed of leading economists, to provide guidance on the economic impacts of AI, including its effects on labour markets, economic growth, and societal systems. The Council will support the development of the Anthropic Economic Index and share its insights to help policymakers, researchers, and business leaders navigate the changing economic landscape driven by AI advancements.
Introducing OpenAI for Countries
OpenAI has launched "OpenAI for Countries," a global initiative to help nations build AI infrastructure rooted in democratic values. The programme offers countries in-country data centres, localised ChatGPT services, national AI start-up funds, and robust safety controls—positioning democratic AI as a counter to authoritarian models and supporting US-led global AI leadership, OpenAI writes in the press release.
Introducing AI Alive: Bringing Your Photos to Life on TikTok Stories
TikTok has launched AI Alive, a new feature that turns static photos into animated videos within TikTok Stories. TikTok says content generated with AI Alive will be integrated with safety checks and AI-generated content labels to ensure transparency and community protection. This announcement fits into a broader trend of adding AI-powered content creation tools, such as YouTube introducing similar tools for its creators.
Tencent hires WizardLM team, a Microsoft AI group with an odd history
WizardLM, a Microsoft-affiliated AI research group based in Beijing, has reportedly joined Tencent's AI division, Hunyuan. Now under Tencent, the team has launched a new model, Hunyuan-TurboS 0416, claimed to outperform Google's Gemma 3 series.
ChatGPT is used more for science in countries where it is prohibited
A team of researchers has found that geographic restrictions on ChatGPT are largely ineffective in reducing its use within the scientific community, suggesting that widespread workarounds, like VPNs and proxy services, undermine the impact of regulatory barriers. By analysing papers and searching for hallmarks of AI-generated text (such as the overuse of “delve”), they discovered that ChatGPT usage was actually higher in countries where it is officially prohibited, such as China, compared to countries with legal access. The study also found that ChatGPT use slightly increased the attention scientific papers received but did not significantly affect citations or journal placement.
o3 Beats a Master-Level Geoguessr Player
Not long after o3 was released, people on the internet realised how good the model is at geoguessing, or guessing where seemingly random photos were taken. In this post, a Master-level Geoguessr player put those claims to the test by playing against o3 in Geoguessr. The AI won, correctly identifying all five countries and twice landing within a few hundred metres.
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🤖 Robotics
Parallels between Generative AI and Humanoid Robots
In this post, Rodney Brooks argues that there are parallels between generative AI and humanoid robots. He highlights how both technologies have become the two most hyped areas in artificial intelligence, attracting massive investments from major tech companies and soaring start-up valuations. However, he warns that public excitement is inflated by misconceptions—generative AI is mistaken for general intelligence due to its human-like language, while humanoid robots are overvalued because of their appearance and promises of cheap labour. He concludes that while these technologies may bring real benefits, expectations around their capabilities and speed of impact are unrealistic, leading to potential disappointment and wasted resources.
DHL buying 1,000+ Stretch robots from Boston Dynamics
DHL Group is expanding its partnership with Boston Dynamics, committing to deploy over 1,000 Stretch robots by 2030 to enhance warehouse automation beyond container unloading to tasks like mobile case picking. This move is part of DHL’s broader strategy, having invested over €1 billion in automation and deployed 7,500+ robots globally.
▶️ Tesla Optimus: Was just getting warmed up (0:42)
In this short video, Tesla shows the new dance moves Optimus, its humanoid robot, has learned, highlighting its agile and human-like moves.
▶️ Robotic Hippotherapy Horse Riding Simulator (2:28)
Who needs a horse when you have a giant robotic arm? Hirop is a certified medical device designed to replace a horse in hippotherapy by precisely simulating the 3D movement of a horse’s back. It offers some advantages over a real animal, such as precise control over the movements, better patient monitoring and easy transfer to a wheelchair.
Robot Dexterity Still Seems Hard
Sure, humanoid robots can dance, do backflips and perform other impressive feats of acrobatics. But that is not what will make them useful in the real world—true utility hinges on dexterity, which this article defines as “the ability to manipulate a broad variety of objects in a broad variety of ways, quickly and on the fly.” Despite billions in investment and growing capabilities, current robots still struggle with basic tasks like folding clothes, pouring liquids, or handling delicate items. Most demonstrations rely heavily on teleoperation or tightly controlled conditions, and both hardware and software limitations—especially in hand strength, tactile sensing, and adaptive control—continue to hold back progress towards truly autonomous, dexterous robots.
Robot chefs take over at South Korea’s highway restaurants, to mixed reviews
Robot chefs are replacing human cooks at South Korean highway rest stops to address labour shortages in the country’s ageing workforce. While the new robots can prepare meals at twice the speed of humans, they require changing menus from traditional, slow-cooked dishes to more easily automatable foods like ramen, udon, and stews, disappointing loyal customers. Human staff now mostly clean, restock, and manage the machines, leading to layoffs, job dissatisfaction, and concerns over job security.
🧬 Biotechnology
‘A New Era’ of Cancer Therapies
This article discusses the evolution of cancer treatments from breakthrough immunotherapies like CAR-T to the next generation of therapies—radiopharmaceuticals, antibody-drug conjugates, mRNA vaccines, and microRNA-targeting drugs—that promise safer, more targeted, and personalised care. However, these new advances bring new challenges, including safety, logistics, and misinformation. As the author notes, the future likely lies not in one silver bullet treatment but in combining multiple approaches to improve outcomes for cancer patients.
Seven Wonders of Biology
In this article,
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