Just when it looked like the year was finally winding down, AI decided to drop one last round of chaos.
In this final roundup of the year, I’m breaking down the biggest late-stage AI stories; including the NVIDIA/Groq $20B situation, major model updates, hardware moves, and a few headlines that got wildly misunderstood along the way.
No hype, no panic… just what actually happened, why it matters, and how it sets the stage for what’s coming next!
Thanks for nerding out with me all year. Let’s wrap this thing up!
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Resources From Today’s Video:
https://groq.com/newsroom/groq-and-nvidia-enter-non-exclusive-inference-technology-licensing-agreement-to-accelerate-ai-inference-at-global-scale
https://beincrypto.com/nvidia-absorbs-rival-decentralized-ai/
Nvidia to license AI chip challenger Groq’s tech and hire its CEO
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.html
Nvidia just made its biggest acquisition ever…
A small startup.
On Christmas Eve.
While everyone was distracted.
The startup is Groq. They make AI chips that run faster than Nvidia's.
In September, Groq raised $750 million at a $6.9 billion valuation.
Investors included… pic.twitter.com/XFR22FVdn8
— Ricardo (@Ric_RTP) December 25, 2025
Why @nvidia acquihiring @Groq for $20B is so interesting:
It looks like a direct (and fast!) reaction by Nvidia to Google successfully using its own TPU chips for training AI models and inference (generating AI content)
Because until recently, they used mostly Nvidia's GPUs… https://t.co/LR8BSnptw0 pic.twitter.com/6DnsFRrkFq
— @levelsio (@levelsio) December 24, 2025
Very few people have built successful chips for AI, and @JonathanRoss321 has done it twice, first with the @Google TPU and then again with the @GroqInc LPU. pic.twitter.com/u87991W5ig
— sunny madra (@sundeep) November 5, 2025
Groq founder Jonathan Ross explains why their architecture is better for inference than GPUs.
Inference doesn't require as much compute power as training. What matters in inference is speed, cost, and energy consumption.$NVDA was going to lose market share as AI workloads… pic.twitter.com/TdE5AMrVEu
— Oguz O. | 𝕏 Capitalist 💸 (@thexcapitalist) December 25, 2025
https://x.com/liquidai/status/2004190178068296181
That's pretty crazy when you think about it
One of the biggest “wow” moments with ChatGPT was the update from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4.
And now this open-source model with only 2.6B parameters that can run locally on your phone… is BETTER than the original GPT-4.
Unbelievable. https://t.co/YOXmlb5mOo pic.twitter.com/3Kmcc59dVZ
— Paul Couvert (@itsPaulAi) December 25, 2025
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/openai-your-year-with-chatgpt-year-end-recap/
https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2002099459883479311
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-ads-push-starts-taking-shape
https://manus.im/blog/edit-slides-created-on-manus-with-nano-banana-pro
https://x.com/alibaba_qwen/status/2003496348461728213
https://x.com/alibaba_qwen/status/2002034611229229388
https://x.com/alibaba_qwen/status/2003445076257656880
https://x.com/YouTubeGaming/status/2000989303086649637
https://www.pocketgamer.biz/youtube-launches-ai-powered-playables-builder-to-let-creators-make-games/
https://www.theverge.com/news/848843/waymo-san-francisco-power-outage
https://www.avclub.com/clair-obscur-genai-iga-awards-rescinded
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Time Stamps:
0:00 – Intro
0:24 – NVidia Acquires Groq?
11:09 – Liquid AI’s new model
12:44 – OpenAI Introduces Personalization Features in ChatGPT
12:20 – OpenAI talking about ads again
14:31 – OpenAI introduces year-end ChatGPT recap
16:27 – Nano Banana Pro Slides Now Editable on Manus
17:58 – Alibaba Unveils Qwen-Image-Edit-2511
18:23 – Alibaba Qwen Launches Open-Sourced Qwen-Image-Layered
19:05 – Alibaba Unveils Qwen3-TTS Lineup
19:50 – YouTube Playables
22:16 – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 loses Indie Game Award
24:18 – Waymo Robotaxis Caused Traffic Backup in San Francisco