Starcloud launched the first NVIDIA H100 GPU into orbit, a first step towards building massive AI data centers in space. Their vision is to leverage continuous solar power and zero-water cooling to overcome Earth's energy and resource limitations for large-scale compute.
Kevlin Henney and James Lewis explore the evolution of our vision of the future, contrasting the boundless optimism of the 20th century with today's more cynical outlook. They analyze the economic and technological forces, such as Jevons' Paradox and the power of connectivity, that have shaped our present reality and offer a hopeful perspective on how a better future could still emerge through gradual, cumulative change.
Anoop Dawar from Deepgram discusses the evolution of voice AI, from basic transcription to sophisticated, real-time voice agents. He covers the key technical challenges in production, such as latency and interruption handling, and introduces Deepgram's Flux system. The talk concludes with a look at the future of speech-to-speech models that can understand emotional nuance, moving closer to passing the audio Turing Test.
Ciro Greco, CEO of Bauplan, outlines a new paradigm for data engineering that applies software engineering principles like version control, transactionality, and a code-first approach to build a programmable lakehouse designed for AI-driven automation and enhanced developer productivity.
Sajith Wickramasekara, CEO of Benchling, discusses the broken economics of drug development, where high costs and failure rates stifle innovation. He explains how the biotech industry is facing a 'dot com' bust and new competition from China, and argues that AI agents and simulation can provide the solution by making science less artisanal and helping scientists create better molecules through faster, cheaper experiments.
Emir Karabeg, co-founder of Sim, shares the journey of building a visual, end-to-end platform for AI agents. He discusses their pivot from a failed idea, their explosive open-source growth strategy, the philosophy of building an AI-native workflow tool, and the operational culture that took them from a YC batch to 60,000 developers.