In what might be the tech world's most ambitious moonshot yet, Ilya Sutskever is betting big on AI safety. Very big. His new startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), is about to raise more than $1 billion at a jaw-dropping $30 billion valuation.

You might remember Sutskever as OpenAI's former Chief Scientist. The same guy who helped show Sam Altman the door, then welcomed him back in that bizarre corporate drama. Now he's got a new mission: building AI that won't accidentally turn us all into paperclips.

Greenoaks Capital Partners seems convinced. They're leading the round with a cool $500 million investment. The deal would catapult SSI from its previous $5 billion valuation into the tech industry's elite club literally overnight.

Fascinating: SSI isn't selling anything. No products. No revenue. Just a laser focus on cracking the code of safe artificial intelligence. As Sutskever put it, they're staying "fully insulated from the outside pressures of having to deal with a large and complicated product."

Think of it as Silicon Valley's version of a monastery. Except instead of contemplating ancient texts, they're contemplating how to keep future AI systems from going rogue.

Why this matters:

• In an era where AI companies race to market, SSI's "safety first" approach marks a radical departure from the typical Silicon Valley playbook
• A $30 billion valuation for a pre-revenue company suggests the tech world is taking AI safety more seriously than ever
• We're witnessing a shift from "move fast and break things" to "move carefully and don't break humanity"

Read on, my dear:

• Bloomberg: OpenAI Co-Founder Sutskever’s Startup Is Fundraising at $30 Billion-Plus Valuation
• siliconANGLW: Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence reportedly raising $1B+ on $30B valuation
  

AI Photo Of The Day

Prompt:
Close-up of an enormous T-Rex skull with long, sharp teeth hanging from the ceiling in a pink and white mansion. A woman's hand is holding a large mirror on the wall, with another dinosaur skeleton next to it. Mirrors are everywhere. Large, wide-angle shot. Surrealism. In the style of David LaChapelle. Easy aesthetic. Hyper-realistic. Hyper-detailed. Cinematic photography.

French AI Goes Arabic: Mistral's Bold New Move

Mistral, the Paris-based AI company, is taking an unexpected turn. Their new model, Mistral Saba, speaks Arabic. And it does it well. Really well.

This isn't just another language model. At 24 billion parameters, Saba is relatively small. But size isn't everything. It outperforms its bigger siblings in Arabic content. And here's the plot twist - it's surprisingly good at Indian languages too, especially Tamil and Malayalam.

Why is this smart? Simple. While American AI giants fight for global dominance, Mistral is playing a different game. They're going local. And with Saba's on-premise deployment option, they're speaking the language of Middle Eastern businesses - both literally and figuratively.

Why this matters:

• While others build bigger models, Mistral shows that smaller, specialized AI might be the smarter play
• This could be the blueprint for cracking regional markets: speak their language, respect their needs

Read on, my dear:

• TechCrunch: Mistral releases regional model focused on Arabic language and culture
• the decoder: Mistral's Saba model brings cultural awareness to language models

AI & Tech News:

AI Guards the Ocean's Secrets

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing ocean security by creating a 'Google Maps of the sea' to protect vital underwater infrastructure. North.io, a German startup, combines data from sonar, satellites, and sensors to detect threats to subsea cables and pipelines in near real-time, turning murky waters transparent.

AI Takes Center Stage at The New York Times

The New York Times is opening its doors to AI tools, allowing staff to use them for tasks like SEO headlines and social media copy. But don't expect AI-written articles - the paper's guidelines explicitly forbid using AI for drafting or significantly revising stories.

TikTok Shop Dominates US E-commerce Despite Political Storm

TikTok Shop has emerged as the fastest-growing e-commerce platform in the US, with sales surging 153% in January despite mounting political pressures. But this explosive growth faces an uncertain future as Trump's trade actions and potential US business sale requirements cast a shadow over the platform's operations.

The Hidden Cost of Borderless AI

According to Gartner, Inc., 40% of AI-related data breaches by 2027 will stem from improper cross-border use of generative AI tools. Every time an employee uses an AI tool, company data could quietly travel from Seattle to Singapore without oversight, creating a regulatory nightmare that could cost organizations millions in compliance violations.

AI Landscape 2025: Your No-BS Guide

The AI world has evolved beyond the one-size-fits-all approach. Each model now has its specialty, like Olympic athletes who excel in one sport instead of being average at everything. It's a shift that makes finding the right AI easier – if you know where to look.

Here's a not-so-shocking revelation: Premium price tags don't guarantee superior performance. Some free, open-source models are outshining their expensive counterparts. It's the store-brand cereal phenomenon – sometimes cheaper tastes better. And in AI, this truth is becoming increasingly evident.

AI Models Worth Your Time:

Budget-Friendly Workhorses:

• OpenAI o3-mini: Your free STEM companion. Because good things can come without a price tag. Excels at technical tasks and basic computations
• GPT 4o-mini: The customer service champion you never knew you needed. Free with ChatGPT, handling everyday queries with surprising competence

The Research Squad:

• OpenAI Deep Research: $200/month for citations that might need fact-checking. Perfect for academic work, if you're into double-checking
• Google Gemini Deep Research: $19.99/month. Think CliffsNotes for academics, but with more graphs and fewer English lit references

The Efficiency Masters:

• Mistral Le Chat: Quick but quirky. Like that friend who's always first with an answer, regardless of accuracy
• Claude Sonnet 3.5: The developer's choice. Premium at $20/month, but saves you hours of debugging

Task Automation Tools:

• OpenAI Operator: $200/month for your digital intern. Does the work while you focus on looking busy
• Anthropic's Computer Use: Pay-as-you-go computer control. Like having a tech-savvy assistant who works for pennies

Enterprise Solutions:

• Cohere Command R+: For when you need to impress the board with enterprise-grade AI
• Gemini 2.0 Pro: Google's $19.99/month powerhouse, with enough memory to remember your coffee order from last year
• ChatGPT-4o: OpenAI's flagship. Still $20/month, still worth it, still the Swiss Army knife of AI