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Dallas Investor Alex Davis on His New $10B Fund and the AI Arms Race

Alex Davis is betting billions on the companies shaping the future of artificial intelligence—and he’s doing so right here in Dallas. At Venture Dallas 2026, held Oct. 22 at Old Parkland, the Disruptive founder, chairman, and CEO sat down with fellow investor John Redgrave to discuss where his bets are headed. The conversation spanned local opportunity and why America’s AI advantage is far from a sure thing to the responsibility that comes with writing big checks and the risks behind the data center boom.

Davis also dropped the news that he plans to relocate Groq’s headquarters to Dallas from Silicon Valley. Serving as the company’s executive chairman, the investor led Groq’s latest fundraise which closed at $350 million. Valued at $3.5 billion, the startup provides the cloud computing power that lets AI models respond quickly to questions and carry out tasks. That process is called inference.

Davis founded Disruptive in 2012 and has deployed $1.9 billion to date, having returned $6 billion to his LPs. His investments have included Palantir, Airbnb, Groq, Spotify, Databricks, Stripe, and Slack. Now, he plans to deploy a newly raised $10 billion megafund into about 10 companies over the next 18 months.

Subaru Telescope on Maunakea to join NASA’s Roman Space Telescope in exploring the Universe

The Subaru Telescope on Maunakea will contribute 100 nights of observations to a new international partnership with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Launched from Florida on Aug. 30, Roman is designed to survey vast areas of the Universe from space. Together with Subaru, it will help scientists investigate some of humanity’s most fundamental questions: How did the Universe begin and evolve? What are dark matter and dark energy? How common are planets beyond our Solar System—and could some of them support life?

Einstein’s equations may explain the universe without dark energy

Mathematicians are raising a major challenge to one of modern cosmology’s most widely accepted explanations: the idea that dark energy is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.

A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A presents mathematical findings that researchers at the University of California, Davis, say reveal a fundamental instability in the standard model of the expanding universe. Their calculations suggest that cosmic acceleration could emerge naturally from Einstein’s equations, potentially eliminating the need to invoke mysterious dark energy.

Light reshapes gelatin scaffolds to steer cell growth in three dimensions

Soft, flexible hydrogels have enabled significant advancements in engineering biological tissue by mimicking the natural scaffolding that provides structure and support to cells. Existing engineered hydrogels, however, fall short in a significant way. Unlike in nature, they do not have the dynamic ability to change their structure or support depending on what the biological tissue needs. The answer may rest in shining a light on the problem—literally, according to a team led by researchers at Yokohama National University.

The researchers found that precisely applying light to a gelatin-based hydrogel they developed allows them to accurately control the shape of the gel, which allowed them to direct the growth direction and shape of nearby cells. The team published their work, which they said could have implications for tissue growth in health and in disease, on Sept. 2 in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.

“The ability to control the morphology of pre-encapsulated cells on demand is useful for mimicking tissues, such as blood vessels and nerves, which change their growth direction according to their environment,” said corresponding author Kazuhiro Iijima, an associate professor in the Faculty of Engineering at Yokohama National University.

How and when does AGI transform the economy?

The Economics of AGI

Andrew koh, alex imas, & shane legg.

GoogleDeepMind 2026 https://institute.deepmind.com/essays/the-economics-of-intelligence/

“Smarter AI will increase productivity but real economic transformation hinges on agents learning to coordinate.”

Is AGI really going to transform the economy as fast as the benchmarks suggest? 🧠📈

A landmark essay from Google DeepMind (“The Economics of Intelligence”) offers a compelling reality check on why exponential AI benchmarks haven’t immediately translated into macroeconomic productivity gains.

Here are three key takeaways from the research:

An Overlooked Immune Cell Killed The Deadliest Form of Lung Cancer in Lab Tests

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a particularly aggressive and deadly disease: fewer than 7 in 100 people survive it for five years.

One of the tricks SCLC uses to persist and to evade treatments is to hide itself from the immune system. Now, an international team of researchers has found a way of removing that disguise and making SCLC more vulnerable.

The crucial component of the new approach is a type of immune cell called gamma delta T cells.