The possible brake on the development of the most advanced AIs in the midst of apocalyptic fear will have major repercussions throughout the technology sector. While waiting for greater clarity on these measures or the force that Donald Trump and the White House will use to prevent them, there are already actors that are beginning to be highlighted in the market both for the opportunity that this stoppage represents for them and for those that have a greater potential to be damaged.
One of the first people to speak out in favor of Dario Amodei's message of a more cautious approach was Elon Musk. The proposed scenario could favor it as it gives more time for SpaceX and its xAI division, reinforced by the acquisition of Cursor, to catch up on model development.
The one who was also the founder of OpenAI and was the protagonist of an important legal battle to try to keep this company as a non-profit foundation, clearly detailed his company's roadmap.
«Grok 4.7 should be on par with Opus 5.0, not 5.1. Better in some things and worse in others. We have to improve our multimodal performance. Grok 4.8 will be a notable improvement and Grok 4.9. probably at the level of Astra and Fable. Grok 5 maybe better than any. "We'll see," said the technology magnate in X, who also tends to err in predicting the future of his businesses.
One of the few technology companies that has distanced itself from Anthropic's request is Meta, which has opted for open source models from the beginning and also plays a pursuer role in this artificial intelligence race.
In fact, the technology company's shares were one of the few that rose last Monday in the midst of a collapse due to uncertainty about AI. This is due to the launch of Muse, its new assistant, which has slipped into the top five most downloaded applications in the United States. This new product highlights the company's ability to reach the 4 billion users of its other applications and reinforces the role of Alexandr Wang, the very young head of AI recruited through the billion-dollar purchase of his startup's staff last year.
Another possible unexpected winner is the European Union. Germany's Ministry of Digital Transformation has stressed that the option of delaying AI development "is not viable" for Europe. An easy assumption to conclude given the lack of continental models among the most advanced in the world. In this regard, Mistral, the great European hope in the field, has just raised 3,000 million euros of fresh money to grow and maintain its bet, a round closed at a providential moment, just before panic broke out.
The losers
As for the losers, Anthropic and OpenAI, if they decide to move forward in a more controlled environment, appear as marked, but more than their future they are concerned about that of their investors. They look with concern at the amount of money that investment funds have leveraged in these companies and their entire value chain.
This year alone, OpenAI and Anthropic have raised $150 billion in new capital from the deepest pockets of the global economy.
The now-delayed IPOs of both giants were seen as an opportunity to begin unwinding positions and now the horizon is much more uncertain. And if the big ones don't dare to go public, it is unlikely that other emerging companies around them will do so, which raises the stakes.
Among the most exposed funds is a16z, owned by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, two of Donald Trump's closest investors who have shaped their investment in AI, in addition to donating to his political campaigns. On the list of the most active in investment are other Silicon Valley giants such as Thrive Capital, Sequoia or Lightspeed, but there is one that stands out above all.
The case of Nvidia
Nvidia is the company most exposed by far to a possible breakdown of AI expectations. The company has been very aggressive using the enormous amounts of cash to invest in companies in its value chain, which has made it the most active entity in rounds of more than 100 million dollars this year in the United States.
Added to this are the massive agreements to purchase chips in exchange for shares that they have with Anthropic, Open AI and the well-known neoclouds (Nebius, Coreweave, Nscale), which will fill data centers with Nvidia chips that are being pre-financed by the technology itself and whose star clients are the creators of Claude and OpenAI.
This model, called by the most critics as the circular economy of AI, can falter if the demand for advanced chips falls, since a chain of defaults would occur between the three parties of the triangle that would seriously damage the balance sheets and operations of all parties.
