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Alibaba Drives Record Agreement with Mint, a $2.5 billion China AI Company

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Alibaba Drives Record Agreement with Mint, a $2.5 billion China AI Company

Following a series of major investments, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. led the largest single financing round for a Chinese artificial intelligence startup. This indicates that the e-commerce company is once again allocating cash in the pursuit of growth.

Alibaba has made significant investments in generative AI, the technology that underpins ChatGPT, alongside Tencent Holdings Ltd. and other Silicon Valley heavyweights like Microsoft Corp. According to people familiar with the deal, it spearheaded a $1 billion fundraising round in Moonshot AI with current supporter Monolith Management, increasing the year-old company’s valuation eight-fold to almost $2.5 billion. They joined previous backers including food delivery giant Meituan’s investment arm Long-Z and Hongshan, formerly Sequoia China, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private transaction.

Established in March 2023, Moonshot AI is one of the more well-known Chinese businesses focused on generative AI, with aspirations to someday compete with OpenAI and Google. Since releasing its Kimi chatbot to the general public in November of last year, it has introduced a platform that allows developers to create AI apps on top of its model. The company was only worth $300 million when it first obtained investment.

Regarding the company’s funding information, which were initially made public by local media, including 36kr, Moonshot AI declined to comment. Without providing any specifics, Monolith declared its involvement in the most recent round. Requests for comments from Alibaba representatives were met with silence.

Joseph Tsai and Eddie Wu, the company’s new CEOs, have promised to turn around a struggling business that has been severely damaged by two years of regulatory scrutiny and a downturn in the economy. It’s promoting fresh investment in disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and coordinating a convoluted multi-way split that will elevate business lines from cloud to logistics. According to Tsai, the cloud division currently services roughly 80% of China’s IT companies and is home to half of the nation’s generative AI startups.

However, they are entering a competitive industry as tech giants and venture capital firms invest billions in AI service development and training, following a surge of activity in Silicon Valley and Europe. Other Chinese AI businesses, like Baichuan and Zhipu, raised substantial sums from investors.

That’s in spite of persistent worries about US sanctions that prevent Chinese companies from purchasing the most potent Nvidia Corp. chips, which are needed to develop and execute AI models. Due to the technology’s potential for military and geopolitical use, which might strain already strained relations, Washington has targeted China’s AI initiatives.

Alibaba and longstanding competitor Tencent previously participated in a $300 million+ funding round for Zhipu in 2023. The company is attempting to bring back the cloud industry and include AI with its proprietary model, Tongyi Qianwen, into a broad business that includes entertainment.

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Google’s Isomorphic Labs Unveils AlphaFold 3, AI that Predicts Structures of Life’s Molecules

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The Google and DeepMind subsidiary Isomorphic Labs has created a new artificial intelligence model that is purportedly more accurate than existing methods at predicting the configurations and interactions of every molecule in life.

The AlphaFold 3 system, according to co-founder of DeepMind Demis Hassabis, “can predict the structures and interactions of nearly all of life’s molecules with state-of-the-art accuracy including proteins, DNA, and RNA.”

Protein interactions are essential for drug discovery and development. Examples of these interactions include those between enzymes that are essential for human metabolism and antibodies that fight infectious illnesses.

Published on May 8 in the academic journal Nature, DeepMind said that the findings might drastically cut down on the time and expense needed to create medicines that have the potential to save lives.

“We can design a molecule that will bind to a specific place on a protein, and we can predict how strongly it will bind,” Hassabis stated in a press release, utilizing these new powers.

Earlier, AlphaFold revolutionized research by making protein 3D structure prediction more straightforward. Nevertheless, prior to AlphaFold 3’s improvement, it was unable to forecast situations in which a protein bound with another molecule.

Despite being limited to non-commercial use, scientists are reportedly excited about its increased predictive power and ability to speed up the drug discovery process.

“AlphaFold 3 allows us to generate very precise structural predictions in a matter of seconds, according to a statement released by Isomorphic Labs on X.”

“This discovery opens up exciting possibilities for drug discovery, allowing us to rationally develop therapeutics against targets that were previously difficult or deemed intractable to modulate,” the blog post continued.

The AlphaFold Server Login Process

The AlphaFold Server, a recently released research tool, will be available to scientists for free, according to a statement made by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs.

Isomorphic Labs is apparently collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to use the potential of AlphaFold 3 in drug design. The goal is to tackle practical drug design issues and ultimately create novel, game-changing medicines for patients.

Since 2021, a database containing more than 200 million protein structures has made AlphaFold’s predictions freely available to non-commercial researchers. In academic works, this resource has been mentioned thousands of times.

According to DeepMind, researchers may now conduct experiments with just a few clicks thanks to the new server’s simplified workflow.

Using a FASTA file, AlphaFold Server’s web interface will enable data entry for a variety of biological molecule types. After processing the task, the AI model displays a 3D overview of the structure.

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Phone.com Launches AI-Connect, a Cutting-Edge Conversational AI Service

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AI-Connect, a revolutionary conversational speech artificial intelligence (AI) service, was unveiled by Phone.com today. AI-Connect, the newest development in Phone.com’s commercial phone system, offers callers and businesses a smooth and effective contact experience.

AI-Connect is specifically designed to handle inbound leads and schedule appointments without the clumsiness of cookie-cutter call routing or the expense of a contact center. This is ideal for small and micro businesses that need to take advantage of every opportunity to convert interest into sales but lack the luxury of an administrative team or a call center to handle the influx of prospects or sales calls.

AI-Connect can effectively manage duties like call routing, schedule management, and FAQ responding since it is built to engage in genuine, free-flowing conversations with callers. Modern automatic voice recognition (ASR), large language model (LLM), text-to-speech (TTS), natural language understanding (NLU), and natural language processing (NLP) technologies are used to enable this capacity.

The real differentiator with AI-Connect is its capacity to provide goal-oriented, conversational communication. Excellent intent recognition is provided by the company’s creative use of LLM in conjunction with NLU/NLP hybrid infrastructure. Notable is also how the new service leverages machine learning to deliver customized suggestions and detailed call metrics for every engagement.

Phone.com CEO and Co-Founder Ari Rabban stated, “AI-Connect is much more than just a service or new iteration of AI-enabled CX; it’s a strategic game-changer that strips away the burden of expensive, complicated technology designed for small businesses.” “AI-Connect, a component of our UCaaS platform, dismantles conventional barriers and gives companies of all sizes access to a realm of efficiency and expertise that would normally require significant time and investment.”

A professional voice greets customers and provides them with a number of easy options when they initiate a call to an AI-Connect script. AI-Connect guarantees that Phone.com customers maximize every engagement, regardless of their availability to answer, from easily arranging, rescheduling, or canceling appointments to smoothly connecting with a specific contact or department.

AI-Connect effectively filters out spam and other undesirable calls by utilizing sophisticated call screening capabilities, saving both business owners and callers important time.

The discussion between callers and AI-Connect is facilitated by sophisticated conversational design, which also optimizes call flow and delivers real-time responses that are most effective. Businesses may easily modify and implement AI-Connect to meet their specific needs thanks to the intuitive user interface (UI).

“We look forward to embarking on the next chapter of communications with great anticipation as innovation is in our DNA,” said Alon Cohen, the acclaimed Chief Technology Officer of Phone.com, whose engineering prowess produced the first VoIP call ever. The FCC’s Pulver Order, which removed certain IP-based communication services from conventional regulatory restrictions, ushered in a new age and was implemented 20 years ago. With AI-assisted interactions, “we are now in a position to investigate their transformational potential. Our commitment to transforming communication is reaffirmed as we embark on a journey towards a future characterized by intelligent solutions.”

Phone.com is celebrating 15 years of consecutive year-over-year growth, driven by a strong clientele that includes more than 50,000 enterprises and an impressive increase in market share. Supported by an unwavering dedication to providing state-of-the-art services and technology at reasonable costs, the company’s approach works well for enterprises of all sizes, accelerating its trajectory of steady expansion.

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Biosense Webster Unveils AI-Driven Heart Mapping Technology

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Today, Biosense Webster, a division of Johnson & Johnson MedTech, announced the release of the most recent iteration of its Carto 3 cardiac mapping system.

Heart mapping in three dimensions is available for cardiac ablation procedures with Carto 3 Version 8. It is integrated by Biosense Webster into technology such as the FDA-reviewed Varipulse pulsed field ablation (PFA) system.

Carto Elevate and CartoSound FAM are two new modules that Biosense Webster added to the software. These modules were created by the company to be accurate, efficient, and repeatable when used in catheter ablation procedures for arrhythmias such as AFib.

Biosense Webster’s CartoSound FAM encompasses the first application of artificial intelligence in intracardiac ultrasound. In addition to saving time, the algorithm, according to the company, provides a highly accurate map by automatically generating the left atrial anatomy prior to the catheter being inserted into the left atrium. Through the use of deep learning technology, the module produces 3D shells automatically.

Incorporating multipolar capabilities with the Optrell mapping catheter is one of the new features of the Carto Elevate module. By doing so, far-field potentials are greatly reduced and a more precise activation map for localized unipolar signals is produced. The identification of crucial areas of interest is done effectively and consistently with Elevate’s complex signals identification. An improved Confidense module generates optimal maps, and pattern acquisition automatically monitors arrhythmia burden prior to and following ablation.

Jasmina Brooks, president of Biosense Webster, stated, “We are happy to announce this new version of our Carto 3 system, which reflects our continued focus on harnessing the latest science and technology to advance tools for electrophysiologists to treat cardiac arrhythmias.” For over a decade, the Carto 3 system has served as the mainstay of catheter ablation procedures, assisting electrophysiologists in their decision-making regarding patient care. With the use of ultrasound technology, better substrate characterization, and improved signal analysis, this new version improves the mapping and ablation experience of Carto 3.

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