This week in AI:
• Peter Thiel just invested $140M in floating AI data centers because America's power grid can't handle AI's appetite
• Visual data shows AI's real economic impact across four key metrics
• Cloudflare laid off 20%+ of its workforce despite record growth — CEO says AI is coming for "measurers," not builders
• Eli Lilly published results on a one-shot gene therapy that permanently fixes cholesterol (keeping things interesting beyond AI)
The theme this week: AI infrastructure is hitting physical limits, job displacement is accelerating, and we're seeing hard data on who gets cut first. Meanwhile, other fields are having their own 1450 moments.
On the Chipp side:
• 🎪 ChippCon Fargo is coming July 30! Full day of workshops, demos, and "show what you built" sessions, followed by a Night Bazaar after-party. Grab your spot here
• 📺 New on YouTube: Autonomous Development in Action workshop — watch how we're rebuilding Chipp with AI agents writing code, testing in production, and self-healing bugs. Watch the recording
• 🗓️ Next workshop drops in early June. Check the full calendar
AI Highlights from Around the Web
Peter Thiel Bets $140M on Floating AI Data Centers
Peter Thiel is leading a $140 million investment in Panthalassa, an Oregon startup building giant steel orbs that float in the ocean to run AI workloads. Why? America's power grid can't handle AI. In the biggest power market (NJ to Illinois), the cost of reserving future power jumped from $29 to $329 in two years — more than 10x higher. If you order a transformer for a data center, you now wait four years.
Almost half of America's planned AI data centers for this year have been cancelled or delayed. The grid cannot handle them.
Panthalassa's solution: Waves push water through internal channels to spin turbines, powering AI chips right there on the platform. Cold seawater cools them for free (Microsoft proved this works — they sank 864 servers in a steel tube off Scotland, used zero freshwater, and saw 8x fewer breakdowns). And nobody fights you in the open ocean.
The Impact of AI in Four Charts
Marc Porter Magee shared visual data showing AI's economic impact across education, workforce, productivity, and adoption. The charts make the scope clear: this isn't hype, it's measurable change happening across multiple sectors simultaneously.
Check the post.
Cloudflare CEO: AI Is Coming for "Measurers," Not Builders
Cloudflare just laid off 20%+ of its workforce — despite posting record revenue growth, strong free cash flow, and adding customers faster than ever.
CEO Matthew Prince's thesis: AI doesn't replace builders or sellers. It replaces measurers — middle managers, auditors, operations teams, and most of marketing.
The vast majority of cuts were measurers. Middle managers got consolidated because AI allows more direct reports per manager while still measuring and mentoring teams effectively. Operations functions merged into one group using AI for specific expertise. Marketing teams (which Prince says are "teeming with measurers") saw significant cuts.
Meanwhile, Cloudflare hired 1,111 paid interns this summer from nearly 1 million applicants. All builders or sellers. All AI-native.
One Shot, Permanent Fix: Gene Therapy Arrives for Cholesterol
Eli Lilly published a trial in NEJM showing a single IV infusion of a base editor (VERVE-102) that rewrites one DNA letter in your liver cells — shutting down PCSK9 production the way it's already broken in ~400 genetic "lottery winners" found in a Texas study.
Result: 62% drop in LDL cholesterol. 88% suppression of PCSK9. Effects holding 18 months and counting. No serious adverse events.
The gap between people who won the genetic lottery and everyone else just got an engineering solution.
Read tweet.
That's it for this week!
If you're building something with Chipp and want to share it at ChippCon or in a future workshop, hit reply or DM us. We want to see it.
– Scott & The Chipp Team
