AI Daily: $1B worth of Nvidia AI chips smuggled to China

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

AI CHIPS: In the three months after U.S. President Donald Trump increased chip export controls, at least $1B worth of Nvidia’s (NVDA) advanced AI processors were smuggled into China, Zijing Wu and Eleanor Olcott of The Financial Times report. This demonstrates the limits of Washington’s efforts to restrain China’s access to chips. Nvidia’s B200 has become the most sought-after and widely available chip in China’s black market, the Times reports, citing dozens of sales contracts, company filings, and people with direct knowledge of the details.

AI OVERVIEWS: Alphabet says new search features continue to perform well, and that AI overviews now have over 2M monthly users. The company also noted during its earnings call that it is really pleased with the growth in subscriptions which got a boost from Google AI Pro and Ultra plans. Waymo driver has now autonomously driven over 100M miles on public roads, Alphabet added.

AI CODING STARTUP: Cognition, maker of the generative coding assistant Devin, is in talks to raise north of $300M, valuing the AI startup at $10B, according to five people familiar with the deal, Forbes’ Richard Nieva and Rashi Shrivastava report. The deal would more than double Cognition’s valuation, only months after a funding round led by 8VC, the venture firm led by Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, valued the company at $4B in March, per Bloomberg.

ROAD TESTING: Pony AI (PONY) announced that the seventh-generation Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation Robotaxi model began road testing in Beijing. With multiple Gen-7 Robotaxi models now undergoing road testing, Pony.ai said it is making significant progress to advance toward large-scale production and commercial deployment. The BAIC Robotaxi fleet is now operating within Beijing’s 225-square-kilometer High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone. With this development, road testing of Gen-7 BAIC and Guangzhou Automobile Group Robotaxi models are concurrently taking place in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. This is driving Pony.ai closer to its goal of expanding its fleet to 1,000 vehicles by the end of 2025, laying a strong foundation for future large-scale commercial deployment.