Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In this edition: a preview of Nvidia GTC…the end of computer programming as we know it…Atlassian cuts 10% of its workforce in AI drive…AI money floods into the U.S. midterms...McKinsey rushes to fix AI system after hacker exposes flaws.  As basketball fans gear up for March Madness next week, AI industry watchers turn to their own late-winter frenzy: Nvidia GTC, the annual developer conference of what is now the world’s most valuable company. For the past two years, I’ve headed to San Jose for what has become far more than a gathering of the Nvidia faithful. It has evolved into a highly-anticipated moment for CEO Jensen Huang to step on stage before nearly 20,000 attendees at the packed SAP Center and hit the equivalent of dozens of three-pointers in his keynote—with loud cheers at every “swish” of Nvidia news. There’s even a three-hour “pre-game” show, which this year features the CEOs of several Nvidia partners.  And that’s just the first day. The event has grown so popular that last year I struggled to find space to meet people, or even to sit down for a minute. While I won’t be able to attend in person this year, I’ll be watching the announcements—as well as playing what has become a game of “Which black leather jacket will Jensen wear?” There has already been a stream of previews, strong hints and rumors about what will be shared at GTC. Here’s a sampling:  AI as a “5 layer cake.” On Tuesday, Nvidia released a blog post by Huang called “AI is a 5 Layer Cake.” In the blog, Huang argues that AI depends on five layers—energy, chips, infrastructure, models, and applications—and that all five need to scale together to enable the massive buildout of AI across the economy. Nvidia, not coincidentally, sits squarely in the middle of that stack, and connects most of the layers together.  More investments and partnerships. Nvidia has invested in dozens of AI companies since last year, deploying billions of dollars across the ecosystem. This week, in advance of GTC, the company announced it has invested $2 billion in AI cloud firm Nebius and is also backing former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s new startup, Thinking Machines with over 1 GW in Nvidia chips. Open-source models—with a strategic goal. In the wake of an announcement this week of a new open source model, Nvidia is reportedly investing up to $26 billion in open-source models and it is rumored that the company will unveil something called NemoClaw, an open-source AI agent platform for enterprises, at GTC. The strategy is less about competing with frontier AI labs and more about keeping developers building inside Nvidia’s software ecosystem—and ultimately driving demand for more chips. Autonomous driving ambitions. Nvidia is also continuing to expand its push into autonomous vehicles, where its chips and software platforms are increasingly being used by carmakers building self-driving systems. Yesterday, the company released a video showing Huang taking a 2.5-hour ride across San Francisco in a Mercedes using its Alpamayo autonomous driving system. With that, here’s more AI news. Sharon [email protected] @sharongoldman This story was originally featured on Fortune.com ...read more read less