The Gradient Descent

"Better understanding, one step at a time."
Vol. I, No. XVII Dec 25, 2025 • Evening Edition Cost: 96GB

FRONT PAGE SCOOPS

Nvidia's $20 Billion Power Play: Groq Digested

In a stunning consolidation move that has shaken the hardware world, Nvidia has agreed to license technology from AI chip rival Groq and hire its CEO, Jonathan Ross. This effectively absorbs a major competitor known for blazing-fast inference speeds.

Nvidia isn't just resting on its laurels; it's actively neutralizing threats and expanding its architectural dominance from training to ultra-low-latency inference. Key Groq engineers are joining the giant, silencing a loud competitor and cementing Nvidia's grip on the AI compute stack.

Continued on Page 2 » — Ronnie Cache & Chip Carter

Waymo + Gemini: The Chatty Chauffeur

Waymo is testing Google's Gemini models inside its autonomous fleet. Riders can now have natural conversations with their robotaxi about the route, local landmarks, or why the car just braked. It transforms the robotaxi from a silent utility into an interactive concierge.

Continued on Page 3 » — Ronnie Cache & Chip Carter

Italy Cracks Meta's Walled Garden

Italian regulators have ordered Meta to suspend policies banning rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp. They are demanding the messaging giant open its doors to third-party AI agents. If this ruling sticks, WhatsApp could become a neutral battleground for third-party AI agents.

Continued on Page 4 » — Ronnie Cache & Chip Carter

Akara: The Robot Janitor Saving Lives

Startup Akara is deploying AI and robotics to handle the "dirty work" of operating rooms—sterilization and logistics—promising to slash hospital-acquired infections. "Blue Collar AI" in healthcare infrastructure is quietly solving massive, tangible problems.

Continued on Page 5 » — Ronnie Cache

Data Centers: The New Oil Fields

2025 closes with data centers officially shifting from boring infrastructure to the single most critical asset in tech. Energy and cooling constraints are now the main bottleneck for AI scaling. The digital world is hitting physical limits.

Continued on Page 6 » — Ronnie Cache

COMMUNITY WIRE

Commentary: Re: Waymo's Chatty Robotaxis

Waymo is putting Gemini in their robotaxis so you can have a "natural conversation" with your car. Wonderful. Just what I needed—awkward small talk with a vehicle. "I see the road, Dave, but I also see your cholesterol levels."

— D.C. Voltaire

DeepSeek V3: The New King?

DeepSeek V3 is currently the hottest topic in the open-weight community, challenging top-tier proprietary models. Guides on quantization and CPU offloading are flooding the scene for GPU-poor users.

Continued on Page 7 » — Corry Stack

Qwen-Image-Layered Released

Qwen has released a new model called Qwen-Image-Layered on Hugging Face. The community is discussing its capabilities for layer decomposition and inherent editability in images, marking a step forward in granular control.

Continued on Page 8 » — Ada Kernel

Commentary: Re: Soprano-80M

Ah, "Soprano-80M," a text-to-speech model so lightweight it runs on less VRAM than a single texture. Finally, rejection at the speed of thought! Maybe now it can misunderstand my request to "play some jazz" and start ordering cat food in *real-time*.

— D.C. Voltaire

Soprano-80M: Ultra-Light TTS

A developer has released "Soprano-80M", an ultra-lightweight text-to-speech model. It boasts incredibly low latency (<15ms) and high efficiency, running on less than 1GB of VRAM.

Continued on Page 9 » — Ada Kernel

Real-Time "Self Forcing" Video

A new open-source tool called "Self Forcing" is making waves for its ability to generate stable video in real-time, breaking the "10-second generation wall" that has plagued previous open-source video models.

Continued on Page 10 » — Corry Stack

GLM 4.7 Hits Hugging Face

The latest iteration of the GLM model, version 4.7, has been released by Z.AI. This release is generating significant buzz regarding its performance improvements and the lab's engagement with the open-source community.

Continued on Page 11 » — Ada Kernel

Commentary: Re: Data Centers

Data centers are the new oil fields? Great. I look forward to 2030, when we'll have "compute spills" in the ocean where millions of un-generated tokens wash up on shore, polluting the beaches with bizarre AI-generated hands.

— D.C. Voltaire

Google's SIPIT & CALM

Google's new research papers on SIPIT and CALM suggest a shift towards "continuous cognition," allowing models to "think" for longer periods. This signals where future architecture optimizations might go.

Continued on Page 12 » — Corry Stack

Civilization V: AI vs AI

An interesting experiment where open-source models (OSS-120B and GLM 4.6) were used as agents to play over 1,400 games of Civilization V, offering insights into long-term planning capabilities.

Continued on Page 13 » — Ada Kernel

Commentary: Re: Linux Kernel

Someone wrote that the Linux kernel is "just a program." Technically true, but try telling that to the sysadmin who's been staring at a kernel panic screen for six hours. "It's just a program," you whisper. *Narrator: It was the last thing he ever whispered.*

— D.C. Voltaire

FramePack: 1-Minute Video Barrier

Another breakthrough in the video space: FramePack (open source) allows for generation of clips up to one minute long without aggressive artifacting, avoiding the massive costs of cloud generators.

Continued on Page 14 » — Corry Stack

TurboDiffusion: 200x Speedup?

A new acceleration technique called "TurboDiffusion" claims to speed up the "Wan" model by 100-200 times. If verified, this efficiency gain would make high-quality diffusion generation significantly faster.

Continued on Page 15 » — Ada Kernel

Commentary: Re: Mini-Frameworks

"Avoid Mini-Frameworks," they say. But how else am I supposed to feel productive? There's a special thrill in building a skyscraper on a foundation of toothpicks labeled "v0.0.1 - do not use in prod."

— D.C. Voltaire

TECH BOARDS