The Bank of Nvidia

Can AI companies afford to buy ever-increasing quantities of Nvidia’s chips? For the company at the center of the boom, that’s an increasingly preoccupying question.

The chipmaker has been inventive in making sure the answer continues to be yes. Nvidia has moved beyond earlier mechanisms for circular financing, such as making equity investments in OpenAI and other AI firms, to newer structures that make chip purchases cheaper by lowering the cost of borrowing.

This week saw a new milestone when Nvidia and a host of Wall Street entities announced plans to deploy $500 billion of capital to provide financing at “attractive rates” for chip purchases. The idea outlined by executives involved is for loans to be backed by Nvidia’s AI hardware that is being bought or leased, but some have raised questions about whether the long-term value of AI chips is predictable enough to inspire confidence. Nvidia’s shares fell 3% on the news.

They fell even more in late July when I reported exclusively that Nvidia was in talks to provide a $250 billion backstop for an OpenAI data-center project in Ohio. On Friday, however, I reported that the two companies have revised the size of the initial guarantee under discussion to less than $120 billion, with a possible expansion kicked down the road.

Nvidia may be the indispensable company of the AI economy, but it still has to consider its investors.

—Anissa is a tech reporter based in San Francisco.

AI writing seems off, and not just because of its reliance on “it’s not X, it’s Y” constructions or my beloved em dashes. It’s the saccharine cheeriness, affirming answers and incessant follow-up questions. AI companies said they dialed back rampant fawning earlier this year, but recent studies—and my own queries—show that newer models still kiss up to us.

The six friends who once famously failed to plan a girls’ trip over text message finally made it out of the group chat, but not without some drama. The women met in Ibiza last month. Some brought husbands and children. Others came alone. In all, 14 people gathered on the Spanish island for a few days. Little did they know that a bitch session between on the first day would accidentally get translated into text and shared in the group chat.

It’s Hot Luddite Summer. As the mood of the nation sours on Silicon Valley’s vision for the future, Flock cameras and data centers have become persona non grata in several communities. In many ways, they are physical manifestations of artificial intelligence—an incorporeal technology—that’s fueling both big dreams and new nightmares.

Cami Clark—who started what she called a ‘revolutionary porn company’ where she sought investment from Jeffrey Epstein—keeps a low profile but is a key adviser to the AI chief. Anthropic’s coming IPO could top trillions.

Delsia Bare and her mother, Ida Huddleston, refused a $26 million offer from a data center builder to buy the farm land that had been in their family nearly 200 years. Since then, the two self-described “country hicks” have become polarizing heroes of the rural campaign against an AI buildout rewiring geopolitics, the economy—and now hometowns like theirs.

Last Ditch Pitch: Demis Hassabis held discussions with government officials and leaders of other AI labs about forming a new independent industry safety entity in the weeks before he relinquished his role as CEO of Google DeepMind.

Schooling Siri: Apple is discussing new deals with publishers to use their content to deliver news and information as part of its new and improved AI-powered Siri voice assistant.

Pre-IPO Pep Talk: Anthropic is meeting with potential investors to shore up confidence in what could be the largest IPO of all time, offering assurances about its rapid pace of growth and strategies it expects will help address a growing public backlash against AI.

🎥 Incubating AI: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan describes himself as “AI-pilled,” saying that he’s seen first-hand how the technology is transforming what startups can build.

…when datamaxxers are feeding their every health move to AI.

The Technology newsletter is a weekly digest of tech reviews, columns and headlines from Anne Steele and Wilson Rothman. Write to Wilson at wilson.rothman@wsj.com and Anne at anne.steele@wsj.com. Got a tip for us? Here’s how to submit.