Microsoft Unveils Maia 300 to Rival Nvidia

Welcome to another edition of AI PlanetX.

Microsoft challenges Nvidia with AI chip; Linus Torvalds uses Claude Code, while Amazon eyes a $7B AI startup acquisition deal.

• Hottest AI News

• Top AI & SaaS Tools

• AI Tutorial: Automate Job Applications With AI

• Top AI & Tech News

• AI Art Spotlight

• Prompt of the Day: Prompts To Find Your Photos Online

• Featured Video

• Course of the Day: Building AI Products

Hottest AI News

Microsoft

Microsoft Unveils Maia 300 AI Chip to Challenge Nvidia's Dominance

Microsoft has unveiled Maia 300, its third-generation chip aimed at cutting reliance on Nvidia. Designed for reasoning models and autonomous agents, it could reshape the cost of running AI when deployment begins in 2027.

Details:

• Microsoft claims 40% more tokens per megawatt than leading GPU systems, with up to 7× the rack-scale token throughput of Maia 200. The comparison has not been independently verified

• Built with TSMC's 2nm-class chiplets, Maia 300 has eight HBM4 stacks delivering 18 TB/s of memory bandwidth. Its 96-chip racks use about 167 kW, targeting complex AI workloads

• Microsoft plans multi-gigawatt deployments in 2027, potentially exceeding one million chips. Maia is set to become main AI inference platform for Copilot and Microsoft services

With Microsoft expecting over $175B in capital spending this year, Maia 300 may weaken Nvidia's AI grip. The big test will come with its 2027 rollout.

50 Excel Hacks That Make Spreadsheets Work For You

Most Excel users waste hours on tasks that take experts minutes. The difference is not talent. It is knowing the right shortcuts.

These 50 Excel hacks from Kenji Explains cover the functions, formulas, and workflows that make spreadsheets work for you instead of against you.

Each one comes with step-by-step instructions and ready-to-use templates. Subscribe to Marketing Against the Grain and get all 50 free.

Here's what you'll get:

• Time-saving shortcuts that eliminate the most common formula frustrations

• Interface essentials most users never discover on their own

• Game-changing functions for data analysis, automation, and visualization

• Guided practice template so you can apply every hack immediately

The people who are fast in Excel are not smarter. They just stopped fighting the tool.

Get 50 Excel Hacks free when you subscribe to Marketing Against the Grain today.

Get The Guide

Anthropic

Linus Torvalds Reveals Claude Code Wrote His Linux Kernel Patch Series

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is using Anthropic's Claude Code for experimental kernel upgrades. One eight-patch proposal tackles a long-standing file-read bottleneck, with his tests showing roughly a 3× speedup.

Details:

• Claude Code produced the code, test programs, review notes and a draft explanation under Torvalds' direction. He reviewed the work and ran performance measurements himself

• The changes avoid page-cache reference counting during certain file reads. In one eight-thread test, tiny-file-read throughput rose from roughly 10 million to 30–33 million reads per second

• Separately, Torvalds used AI to simplify obscure kernel code, confirm a known bug and uncover three more dating to 2013. Neither patch set has joined the main Linux branch

These are targeted laptop results, not a proven Linux-wide boost. Yet the work shows how AI can help even top developers tackle difficult system code.

Top AI & SaaS Tools

• Orchestra (Life-time Deal): AI marketing platform that unifies strategy, content, email, SEO, social publishing, and Google/Meta ad management

• AutoSprite: Turns character images or text prompts into game-ready sprite sheets with consistent animations for Unity, Godot, and more

• Base Code: Lets teams edit GitHub codebases in a browser using plain-language instructions, preview changes live, and submit pull requests [F-R-E-E to Try]

• EmbeddingGemma 2: Open-source, lightweight AI model that enables on-device semantic search across text, images, audio, video, and code, even offline [F-R-E-E]

• ngram 2.0: Create narrated explainers, screencasts, and AI avatar videos from your ideas, documents, and recordings, then refine them in chat [F-R-E-E to Try]

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AI Workflow

How to Build a Job Application Pipeline With AI

What if saving a job post kicked off your entire application? This workflow uses AI, a tracker, and a few automations to build your resume, cover letter, interview prep, and follow-up.

1. Save Job

   Add the job to Google Sheets, Airtable, or Notion with the URL, company, title, and full description.

   Use this record as the workflow's source of truth.

2. Score Fit

   When a fresh job is added, send the description and your master resume to ChatGPT or Claude.

   Return a fit score, strongest matches, missing requirements, and the evidence from your resume that supports each match.

3. Filter Opportunity

   Add a simple IF condition in n8n, Make, or Zapier.

   • High fit → continue

   • Borderline → review manually

   • Low fit → archive

   This prevents the workflow from generating a full application for every job.

4. Create Resume

   Send the approved job record to AI and generate a role-specific resume from your master version.

   Save the fresh resume as a Google Doc or PDF inside a folder for that company and role.

5. Create Cover Letter

   Pass the job description and tailored resume into a second AI step.

   Generate a short, role-specific cover letter and save it beside the resume so both files stay attached to the same application record.

6. Generate Interview Prep

   Use the same job record to create an interview brief.

   • Likely behavioral and technical questions

   • STAR stories based on your actual experience

   • Questions to ask the interviewer

7. Update and Follow Up

   Write the generated file links, fit score, and status back to Sheets, Airtable, or Notion.

   When the status changes to Applied, trigger a follow-up reminder in Gmail or Google Calendar. Status-based branching and logging are standard patterns in current recruitment automations.

Note: Keep the master resume untouched. The workflow should always create a fresh version for each job, while the original remains your source file.

Top AI & Tech News

• Amazon is reportedly in talks to acquire Nvidia-backed AI startup Decart for around $7 billion, after Anthropic previously explored a deal

• Sakana AI has unveiled MASS, a system where AI agents help a model improve its own workflows, reporting up to 60% better efficiency on selected benchmarks

• IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva called AI a “slow-moving tsunami” that could reshape 40% of jobs worldwide, even as AI investment fuels global economic growth

• Google is testing Gemini 4 model called Carbon, which employees say rivals Claude Opus 5.5 in coding, while preparing Gemini 4 Argon with context windows up to 900K tokens

AI Art Spotlight

Create Your Own Product Photo Like This Using the Prompt Below:

[product], centered top down flat lay, surrounded by [ingredients], fresh slices and whole pieces, glossy wet look, water splash frozen mid motion around the product, dewy droplets on label and surface, warm beige seamless background, soft directional sunlight, crisp realistic shadow, high end skincare advertising, ultra realistic macro product photography, 100mm lens look, f/8 sharp focus, clean composition, no extra text, 8k, 1:1

Model: ChatGPT Images 2.5 / Nano Banana 2.1

Prompt of the Day

Prompts To Find Your Photos Online And Request Removal

These prompts help you search for photos of yourself across the web, identify where they appear, and organize the information you find. They can also help you draft clear, polite removal requests for websites or platforms hosting unwanted images, making it easier to protect your privacy and manage your online presence.

Featured Video

Anthropic's Engineers Stopped Building AI Agents. Here's What They Build Instead.

AI Course of the Day

Building AI Products

This course teaches how to design AI-powered products and develop AI-based solutions for real-world problems. It covers machine learning, deep learning, AI applications across industries, and the steps involved in building AI solutions, including creating proposals for investors or stakeholders.