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Space race: Blue Origin just won a major contract with NASA

Space race: Blue Origin just won a major contract with NASA

David Crowther

Artemis

‍On Friday, NASA announced that it had selected a group led by Jeff Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, to develop a moon lander for the Artemis program. The project will cost more than $7bn in total, with the NASA contract worth $3.5bn and Blue Origin contributing more than $3.4bn in order to build the 50-foot-tall spacecraft.

The Artemis program, led by NASA with its partners in Europe, Japan and Canada, has one main goal; to get astronauts back on the moon — a feat not accomplished since Apollo 17 more than 5 decades ago. Artemis is well underway following the successful Artemis I mission in 2022, which saw an uncrewed Orion spacecraft orbit the moon. The mission is set to be replicated in 2024, this time with a crew onboard.

‍Private launch

‍NASA's decision to award the contract to Blue Origin's team, which includes collaboration with industry giants like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, comes after two deals with Elon Musk's SpaceX for its Starship lander. Indeed, the latest deal is indicative of a more commercially collaborative NASA that has been increasing its reliance on the private sector, licensing a record-breaking 79 commercial launches last year.

‍SpaceX being chosen ahead of Blue Origin sparked court drama in 2021 as Bezos' company sued the US government for unfairly favoring Musk's company, claiming it would have been better to have chosen two companies. With the latest news, SpaceX — which has done more private launches than any other company — is now slated to conduct the inaugural lunar landing for Artemis in late 2025. Blue Origin crews will have to wait until 2029 for the Artemis V mission.

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Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind’s CEO and founder, was also an early Anthropic investor

A chess prodigy and an actual a knight of the realm in the UK, it’s perhaps no surprise that Demis Hassabis has made some strategic moves about his exposure to AI upside. According to people familiar with the matter, the influential AI architect became an angel investor in Anthropic, currently behind many of the leading AI models, per Arena AI leaderboards.

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

I’m playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis emerges as early Anthropic investor

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis emerges as early Anthropic investor

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

I’m playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

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