E80: 3/21/25

Adobe AI, AI-enabled fire detection satellites, NVIDIA's GTC announcements, Baidu continues the Chinese LLM cost-slashing, and more

PNW AI News:

• No news from MSFT/Amazon/etc. this week! What!!

  • Plenty in the funding section below though :)

Key AI Product/Research Updates:

• Adobe released a new AI agent strategy for its new Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, introducing ten specialized agents for enterprise tasks like customer experiences, marketing workflows, and more

• Google Research and Muon Space just co-launched the first AI-powered FireSat satellite, designed to provide powerful tools for early wildfire detection, with the ability to spot fires as small as a classroom within minutes of ignition

• At NVIDIA's GTC Conference, they announced:

  • Blackwell Ultra, a new GPU 1.5x the speed of its predecessor, and paired with a Grace CPU. It powers the GB300 superchip, a dual-GPU system processing 1,000 tokens per second on DeepSeek’s R1 model, 10x faster than Hopper

  • Halos framework, self-driving AI framework for simulation and real-world validation, partnering with GM to integrate it into future vehicles

  • GR00T N1, their newest humanoid robot iteration paired with its own foundation model, combining reflex-driven actions with deeper reasoning

  • DGX Spark, a compact inferencing box, runs on the GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip

  • cuOpt, Nvidia’s AI-powered optimization engine, is now open-source

• Chinese tech giant Baidu released two aggressively priced multimodal AI models, ERNIE 4.5, a significant upgrade to their foundational model, and ERNIE X1, a new deep-think-capable model

• Roblox rolled out Cube 3D, a new open-source AI system for generating 3D objects and scenes from text prompts

• OpenAI has launched three advanced voice AI models (gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, and gpt-4o-mini-tts) engineered for high-fidelity transcription and customizable speech synthesis

• Oracle announced its AI Agent Studio, a no-cost tool that lets users craft and refine AI agents inside its Fusion Cloud Application Suite

• Bolt launched a URL tool that convert Figma designs into full-stack applications with AI

• Google DeepMind introduced Gemini Robotics and Gemini Robotics-ER, AI models that enhance real-time adaptability and spatial reasoning in robotics, allowing robots to interpret natural language

• Moonvalley introduces a ‘clean’ generative video AI model for cinema and advertising, trained entirely on their own studio videography datasets

Key AI Business/Investment Updates:

• NVIDIA, Musk's xAI to team up with Microsoft, GE Vernova, BlackRock and MGX to develop AI datacenter infrastructure and power generation projects

• Meta announced that its Llama open-source LLMs officially reached 1B downloads this month, up from just 650M downloads in December 2024

• California-based Figure is going all-in on high-speed humanoid production with its BotQ factory, engineered to churn out 12K units a year

• OpenAI and Google are pushing for sweeping AI policy changes in their submissions to the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan, arguing for less restrictive data regulations and calling for a ban on AI models from DeepSeek and other Chinese firms, alleging they operate under Beijing’s oversight and are bound by Chinese data-sharing laws

  • Google’s proposal similarly advocates for looser copyright and export controls

• In defense against their data torrenting for AI training allegations, Meta is being mocked for raising “Bob Dylan defense” in copyright fight

PNW AI/ML/CV Fundings:

• Icertis (Bellevue, WA) raised $50M in post-Series E funding from existing investor B Capital Group

  • Contract intelligence platform designed to structure and connect every kind of contract, now injecting AI automation – TFTD $531.5M

  • CEO: Samir Bodas

• Gradial (Seattle, WA) raised $13M in Series A funding led by Madrona, joined by PruVen Capital, Outsiders Fund, General Advance, and DLA Piper

  • Enterprise GenAI platform designed for enterprises to build powerful native and cross-app workflows and provide customer support – TFTD $18.3M

  • CEO: Douglas Tallmadge

• Mpathic (Bellevue, WA) raised $8M in Seed II funding from undisclosed investors

  • Conversational AI platform intended to improve human accuracy in various industries – TFTD $19.1M

  • CEO: Grin Lord

• Spangle.ai (Bellevue, WA) raised $6M in Seed funding from Madrona Venture Group, Streamlined Ventures, and others

  • Agentic AI-based platform designed to optimize shopping experiences – TFTD $6M

  • CEO: Maju Kuruvilla

• Workflow Labs (Seattle, WA) raised $1.01M in Accelerator funding

  • AI automated software intended for e-commerce management – TFTD $4.75M

  • CEO: Justin Leigh

• Quack (Vancouver, BC) raised $0.35M in Pre-seed funding led by Metiquity Ventures

  • AI cold calling platform designed for sales teams at tech companies that makes cold calling easy – TFTD $0.44M

  • CEO: Taylor Giudice