Good morning. It's Friday, May 15, and we're covering rising tensions in the US-China AI race, the Trump administration’s growing crackdown on Beijing-linked firms, and Anthropic’s effort to push AI into global health.
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Anthropic Extends AI Into Global Health
Anthropic is directing AI resources toward neglected diseases and low-income health systems instead of focusing solely on commercial customers. The company forms a four-year, $200 million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support healthcare, education, and economic mobility programs using Claude. Projects include vaccine screening for polio and HPV, outbreak forecasting tools, and AI tutoring systems.
Texas County Slows Data Center Rush
Hill County officials pause new rural data center construction for a year, highlighting growing resistance to AI infrastructure expansion in lightly regulated parts of Texas. Commissioners approve the 3-2 moratorium after residents raised concerns about water use, electricity demand, and noise tied to proposed developments. County leaders expect lawsuits as at least eight projects reportedly move through the area without disclosure rules.
Anthropic Pushes Claude into Small Business
Anthropic is repositioning Claude from chatbot to back-office operating system, aiming to automate routine work across small businesses through one interface. The company launches “Claude for Small Business,” integrating with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, QuickBooks, Canva, and DocuSign for tasks including invoicing, document drafting, and workflow management. The launch follows reports that Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI in enterprise adoption.
Notion Expands into AI Agent Platform
Notion is shifting from note-taking software into infrastructure for coordinating AI agents, automated workflows, and live company data across multiple apps. The company launches a developer platform with custom code execution, external agent support, and database syncing for tools like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Postgres. Notion says users have already built more than 1 million AI agents since February.
FRIDAY FACTS
Where Are Most of Your Brain's Neurons Hiding?
The part of your brain that gets almost no credit turns out to house the overwhelming majority of its neurons. Find out which region at the bottom of this newsletter.
POWERED BY ADOBE
The New Creative Agent in Adobe Firefly
Adobe just launched the public beta of Firefly AI Assistant in Adobe Firefly. Describe what you want to create and the assistant handles the rest, orchestrating multi-step workflows across Photoshop, Premiere, Firefly, Express, and more. You call the shots — defining the vision, shaping the details, and choosing what works — while the assistant accelerates execution.
AI DATA CENTERS
AOC and Bernie Want to Stop AI. That's Not an Option.
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are making a big push to stop AI progress in the form of a datacenter moratorium. Garry Tan's reaction was basically the builder response in one sentence: if America slows down, the race doesn't stop, someone else just wins.
Yes, there are legitimate questions asked by Sanders and AOC. AI data centers are going to touch energy prices, water use, local tax deals, jobs, and the grid. People are not crazy for asking who pays for that. The industry should not act shocked when a buildout this large becomes political.
Stopping AI means a majority of our current GDP growth ends, as well as the blue collar job growth we've been seeing. It means innovation stagnates. It means abundance in the future goes to another country.
There are better ways. For example, let companies pay for everyone's electricity in towns where data centers are built.
Stopping is not an option.
AI RACE
Anthropic Warns US Could Lose AI Lead to China by 2028
Anthropic published a 14 May 2026 policy paper arguing that the US and its allies must tighten AI chip export controls and curb Chinese “distillation attacks” or risk losing leadership in frontier AI by 2028. The company claims China’s AI labs remain close to US rivals largely through loopholes in semiconductor restrictions, offshore data center access, and the extraction of capabilities from American models.
Anthropic outlines two futures: one where democracies maintain a 12–24 month AI lead and shape global AI norms, and another where China reaches near-parity, enabling broader state surveillance, cyber capabilities, and geopolitical influence. The paper also highlights Anthropic’s new “Mythos Preview” model, which it says dramatically accelerated cybersecurity work, as evidence that transformative AI capabilities are arriving faster than expected. → Read the full article here.
GEOPOLITICS
Trump Administration Escalates Quiet Pressure Campaign Against China
The Trump administration has intensified actions against China in the weeks leading up to President Donald Trump’s May 2026 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, despite earlier efforts to avoid public confrontation. U.S. agencies imposed sanctions on Chinese firms accused of helping Iran target American bases, warned of Chinese theft of U.S. AI technology, charged a California mayor with acting for Beijing, and highlighted renewed Chinese cyber intrusions into FBI systems.
Officials also moved against Chinese-linked telecom and router companies over cybersecurity concerns, while delaying final approval of a $13 billion Taiwan military aid package until after Trump’s Beijing visit. The flurry of measures reflects growing pressure from China hawks inside the administration, even as Trump publicly emphasized his “good relationship” with Xi during the summit. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)
SEMICONDUCTORS
Japan’s Obscure Industrial Firms Become Unexpected AI Winners
A wave of AI-driven semiconductor demand is turning little-known Japanese manufacturers into critical suppliers for the global chip industry. Ajinomoto, best known for inventing MSG, now controls more than 95% of the market for Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF), an insulating material used in AI processors; its shares have climbed 65% this year. Toto, the world’s largest toilet-maker, has also become a major supplier of ceramic components used in memory-chip production, with advanced ceramics now generating more than half its operating profit.
Other niche winners include Hoya, Sakura, and Nitto Boseki, whose decades-old expertise in specialty materials has become essential for AI chipmaking. The boom reflects Japan’s lingering strengths from its 1980s semiconductor dominance, and a corporate culture that invests patiently in technologies long before demand arrives. → Read the full article here. (Paywall)
NEWS
What Else is Happening
xAI Uses Turbine Loophole: Musk’s Mississippi data center runs 46 gas turbines on trailers, avoiding pollution rules amid an NAACP lawsuit.
NVIDIA Hits $5.7T Value: Shares rose 4% after reports said some Chinese firms may gain access to NVIDIA’s H200 AI chips.
Cerebras Surges in IPO Debut (Paywall): The AI chipmaker surged 68% in its market debut, reaching a $67 billion valuation.
Workers Resist AI Adoption: A CNBC survey found 65% of workers avoid AI over privacy, ethics, accuracy, or environmental concerns.
AI Helps Recover Lost Bitcoin: Anthropic’s Claude helped a man regain access to nearly $400,000 in Bitcoin locked for 11 years.
FRIDAY FACTS
The Cerebellum Holds 80 Percent of Your Brain's Neurons
The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons. Most people assume the bulk of them live in the cerebral cortex — the wrinkled outer layer responsible for language, memory, and reasoning. They don't. About 69 billion neurons — roughly 80 percent of the total — are packed into the cerebellum, a fist-sized structure at the back and bottom of the brain that accounts for only about 10 percent of its volume.
Nearly all of those cerebellar neurons are granule cells: tiny, densely packed, and wired to receive and recode signals at enormous scale — each one receiving input from mossy fibers but outnumbering them 200 to 1. The cerebellum was long treated as a motor-coordination module. More recent research suggests it contributes to cognition and emotion as well, which, given how many neurons it's quietly running, makes sense in retrospect.
