Microsoft, Amazon and Google Are Kingmakers For AI Startups
Microsoft, Amazon and Google Are Kingmakers For AI Startups
Google DeepMind Scientists to Form AI Startup
Microsoft, Amazon and Google Are Kingmakers For AI Startups
Google DeepMind Scientists to Form AI Startup
AI optimism could continue to strengthen stocks through the end of the decade, UBS Investment Bank says
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Microsoft, Amazon and Google Are Kingmakers For AI Startups
Behind almost every leading artificial intelligence startup, you’ll find a tech giant fueling its rise.
Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have invested billions in the top artificial intelligence startups, supercharging the fast-growing AI sector and establishing the old guard of technology companies as kingmakers for a new generation of businesses.
Now, those deals are coming under scrutiny. The US Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that the three tech companies must provide information to the agency on their investments and partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic. The FTC said it sent subpoenas to the companies to gather information on how the development of AI is impacting the competitive landscape.
More than any other company, Microsoft represents the unique relationship between Big Tech and AI startups. Microsoft committed to invest $13 billion in OpenAI, integrated the AI company’s technology into virtually every corner of its business.
In the wake of Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI last January, other tech giants raced to partner with leading AI startups through funding and cloud computing deals, too. Salesforce Inc. led a round in Hugging Face at a $4.5 billion valuation. Alphabet and Amazon.com invested billions in OpenAI rival Anthropic. And Nvidia Corp. seemed to back almost every AI startup of note.
For AI companies, these deals with Big Tech can serve as a vital lifeline. It’s extremely costly and computationally intensive to build large language models, the technology that underpins AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The tech giants are among the only companies with the infrastructure and funds to support these efforts…. FTC Chair Lina Khan said: “There is no AI exemption from the laws on the books.”
By Isabella Ward and Natalie Lung of Bloomberg
Google DeepMind Scientists to Form AI Startup
A pair of scientists at Google DeepMind, the Alphabet Inc. artificial intelligence division, have been talking with investors about forming an AI startup in Paris, according to people familiar with the conversations.
The team has held discussions with potential investors about a financing round that may exceed €200 million ($220 million) — a large sum, even for the buzzy field of AI, the people said. Laurent Sifre, who has been working as a scientist at DeepMind, is in talks to form the company, known at the moment as Holistic, with fellow DeepMind scientist Karl Tuyls, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing private information. They said the venture may be focused on building a new AI model.
Sifre was a co-author of the 2016 DeepMind research on Go, a seminal work that showed a computer system beating masters of the ancient game for the first time, which sparked an international frenzy over AI. Tuyls has worked on research into game theory and multi-agent reinforcement learning, a branch of AI that explores interactions between autonomous actors, often through video games.
Both Sifre and Tuyls are widely considered leaders in their field, and the unusually large financing round being discussed is further evidence of strong investor interest in the technology.
Mistral AI, an OpenAI rival whose chief executive officer also worked for DeepMind, formed in early 2023 and had raised two sizable rounds by the year’s end to earn a valuation around $2 billion. Kyutai, a nonprofit AI research lab, was formed in November with €300 million in initial funding….
By Benoit Berthelot, Lizette Chapman, and Sarah McBride of Bloomberg
AI optimism could continue to strengthen stocks through the end of the decade, UBS Investment Bank says
Investors’ enthusiasm about artificial intelligence will remain the key theme for the U.S. stock market in 2024 and will drive technology stocks higher for the rest of the decade, according to analysts from UBS Investment Bank.
“Despite the strong performance seen so far, we believe the investment case for AI and related companies, especially those in the semiconductor industry, will persist in 2024, and is in fact set to strengthen,” a team of analysts led by Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer for the Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a Monday note to clients.
The bank expects global AI revenue to grow 15 times to $420 billion by the end of 2027, from $28 billion in 2022, driven by “particularly strong demand” for AI computing and graphics-processing-unit chips in the next 12 to 18 months.
Enjoy! SBalley Team