E57: 9/20/24
Msft/Blackrock $100B fund to invest in data centers, World Labs is trying to create "LWMs" with spatial intelligence, Saudi Aramco launches data centers, 3 new AI video models, Slack AI agents, etc.
Crazy week in AI. Enjoy the read!
PNW AI News:
Microsoft announces plans to re-open the Three Mile Island nuclear powerplant, which melted down in 1979 in Pennsylvania, to power data centers in a partnership with Constellation Energy
Microsoft and Blackrock launched a $100B fund to invest in AI data centers and additional related power infrastructure, raising $30 billion to start
Amazon’s new AI assistant dubbed "Project Amelia" will advise sellers on way to optimize their storefront performance, and act on their behalf to make those changes
Microsoft unveils ‘multiplayer AI collaboration’ tool for work, trying to overcome Copilot low adoption rate issues
Uses agents to execute admin work on the user's behalf when prompted, and "Pages" as a control plane for multiple specialized agents
The UW College of Education lands a $10M grant from the US Dept of Education to launch a new center developing genAI teaching tools, focusing on developing Colleague AI, which UW researches released to K-12 teachers this year
TrueMedia, the Seattle-based nonpartisan nonprofit that is using AI to detect deepfakes and combat disinformation ahead of the US presidential election, released its free web-based tool to the general public
At T-Mobile’s Capital Markets Day, Sam Altman discussed the new o1 model's advanced reasoning capabilities and hinted at the accelerated development of AI agents in-house at OpenAI
Key AI Product/Research Updates:
Apple released the beta of its AI software update, iOS 18.1, for early testing alongside the iPhone 16 release, enhancing Siri and introducing a suite of AI-powered features
Slack just announced a suite of new AI-powered features, including AI agents and improved integrations with Salesforce, Asana, Monday.com, Jira, and more, aimed at boosting workplace productivity and streamlining workflow
Google just released the Open Buildings 2.5D Temporal Dataset, an AI-powered tool that tracks building changes across the Global South from 2016 to 2023, including estimates of building presence, counts, and heights
YouTube Shorts is integrating Google Deepmind's Veo video generation AI model into their creator suite
YouTubers can produce high-quality backgrounds and 6-second clips at 1080p
OpenAI's recent AI models, o1-preview and o1-mini, have excelled in the LMSys Chatbot Arena, securing top rankings in overall performance, safety, and technical capabilities
Luma AI has introduced its Dream Machine API, intensifying competition in the AI video generation space just hours after rival RunwayML launched its own API for its Gen-3 Alpha Turbo model
Snapchat also introduced a new AI video-generation tool for creators
AI video generation becoming commoditized…
China's Alibaba launches over 100 new open-source AI models in a variety of modalities and sizes, including its first text-to-video generation tool
Alphabet (Google parent co) is rolling out features for detecting AI-generated images across several services including YouTube
1X has developed its ‘World Model’, an AI-powered virtual simulator for robots that can predict complex object interactions and imagine multiple future scenarios from a single starting point
New phenomenon of "large world models" (LWMs) focused on geospatial understanding
TikTok parent company Bytedance is developing its own AI GPUs, aiming to reduce reliance on Nvidia with two chips for AI training and inference planned for mass production in 2026
Google Research, in partnership with NOAA, recently developed a new AI model capable of identifying vocalizations from eight distinct whale species
Key AI Business/Investment Updates:
World Labs, co-founded by AI expert Fei-Fei Li (known as the "Godmother of AI") , has launched with $230M in funding at over a $1B valuation, to develop AI models that understand and interact with 3D environments, referred to as "Large World Models" (LWMs)
Sam Altman told OpenAI staff the company’s non-profit corporate structure will change next year to a more traditional 'for profit' model
Oil giant Saudi Aramco builds world's largest AI inference center in Saudi Arabia with US chipmaker Groq, with plans to house 200K GPUs
The Hollywood studio Lionsgate signs a deal with RunwayML to train its AI model on its movies and shows portfolio
AI Startup Sakana surpasses a $1.5B valuation at the Series A, as a Japanese firm piles $200M into the company
LinkedIn is catching controversy for scraping its user data for AI training purposes, less than 3 days before updating its terms of service, which bans third-party scrapers and requires users to opt-out of their data being used for training
PNW AI/ML/CV Fundings:
Group14 Technologies raised $200M in Grant funding by Congress in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy
Manufacturer and supplier of advanced silicon battery technology for EVs (electric vehicles), data centers, and consumer electronics industries – TFTD $883.4M
CEO: Eric Luebbe
Gamebeast (Seattle, WA) raised $3.7M of Pre-seed funding led by J2 Ventures, joined by Andreessen Horowitz’ SpeedRun gaming fund, The Mini Fund, and Le Zhang
Developer of a tooling platform in user-generated content (UGC) games designed for live engagement, segmentation, AI-generated bug fixes, and monetization analytics – TFTD $3.7M
CEO: Zander Brumbaugh
Action-CS (Marysville, WA) raised $0.8M of seed funding from undisclosed investors
Operator of computer vision-guided proactive security systems intended to deter crime and empower proactive security in homes and businesses – TFTD $0.8M
CEO: Justin Gant