Good morning Conscious Church Fam

2025 has exploded into action with all the recent AI news and growth. There have been some big moves in the space in the last week alone, with DeepSeek being the talk of the town.

Check out the latest.

In today's recap:

🏙️ Meta goes BIG
🚀 OpenAI’s Stargate Project
🐋 DeepSeek changes the game

💭 Josh’s Musings

It can feel pretty overwhelming at times. (I know I feel it)

The speed at which AI is developing is wild – every app I open seems to be sprouting its own little AI assistant or tool these days.

Depending on what you read, we're either all going to be jobless or we're all going to be architects and creators. It's exactly why I started this newsletter.

You see, I'm torn.

I love tech. Love gadgets. Love building tools and systems that help make life better. Yet I'm simultaneously pulled to a different way of doing things – a more analog, natural, conscious life.

And here's what I've come to believe: these two worlds can co-exist.

I think it's similar for a lot of people in the Church.

Perhaps you're a Pastor navigating Sunday sermons in the age of ChatGPT. Maybe you're a church staff member, or a startup founder with kingdom values.

How do we navigate this exponential growth era without losing ourselves?

It’s a question I think we all are perhaps internally asking

This email is just the beginning, but here's my hope:

Each week you'll feel less overwhelmed, a little more inspired, a lot more equipped, and empowered.

Because AI isn't here to replace you.

No one or NOTHING can.

Yet we can use it to maximise our time, our output, and our systems. To amplify our impact for the Kingdom.

LATEST NEWS

META

🏙️ Meta's $65B AI Leap

Recap: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled a $60-65 billion capital expenditure plan for 2025, aiming to position Meta as a leader in AI infrastructure.

Highlights include:

• Deploying 1GW of compute power in 2025, with a data center large enough to cover a significant portion of Manhattan.

• Aiming to amass over 1.3 million GPUs by year-end, one of the largest hardware deployments in AI history.

• A 70% jump in AI spending compared to 2024, with Meta AI targeting 1 billion users by the end of this year.

Conscious Thoughts: Companies are recognising that AI is reshaping industries and they are rapidly repositioning themselves so as not to miss the moment (and the leverage that will come with it).

The growth of AI (and the resources needed) raises many ethical and even ecological issues.

OPEN AI

🚀 OpenAI’s Stargate Project

Recap: OpenAI (creators of ChatGPT) and major tech players have announced the Stargate Project, a $500 billion initiative to transform U.S. AI infrastructure. The project will deploy cutting-edge resources and facilities, creating a major competitive edge for the U.S. in the global AI race.

Conscious Thoughts: OpenAI has been the leader in the AI space, and announced last week, Operator, their AI Agent that can automatically action tasks for you! It’s a wild time to be alive. Things that we are manually doing today could be automated in the very near future. (Think researching a recipe and buying the ingredients, looking for flights and buying them, responding to emails).

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

🐋 DeepSeek changes the game

Recap: DeepSeek’s new AI assistant has overtaken OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the Apple App Store rankings, demonstrating a shift in consumer preferences and potentially signaling a new player dominating the AI assistant space.

It sent shockwaves through tech stocks and made some people concerned about America’s competitive edge In technology.

Key Takeaways:

• DeepSeek claims their AI was developed for under $6 million, a fraction of the cost of other advanced models.

• Their performance is said to be on par with Claude-3.5 and GPT-4o, despite the lower development costs.

• The app has similar features to ChatGPT, including coding, content creation, and research capabilities.

Conscious Thoughts: It’s exciting for AI that a startup can muscle its way front and centre of the conversation with much more limited resources.

🔗 Quick Tools

• 🤖 NotebookLM - Your personalized AI research assistant

• 📹 Descript - All-in-one AI video editor!

• 🎶 Harmoniq Ai - Let AI craft your Spotify Playlist

Take a moment with God right now.
(Breathe in) God, all that I need is found in you
(Breathe Out) I give you all my fears and anxiety

See you soon,

Josh

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