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Sergey Kartashov talks about why Cyprus is best for relocating IT companies

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Sergey Kartashov, the CEO of Generation Partners, has a huge experience of working as head of an IT asset management company. He finds Cyprus as one of the best countries in the world for IT industry and believes it is also best for relocating IT companies, especially from Eastern Europe.

Factors that make a Country Attractive for Relocation

There are dozens of factors that make a country attractive to IT companies from all across the world. In recent years, Cyprus welcomed IT companies from Eastern Europe and various other parts of the world. According to Sergey Kartashov, the most important factors in this regard are tax policy, legislation, cost of living, infrastructure, and the existence of a developed IT community.

Based on these factors, countries are divided into various categories. The US, Lithuania, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany, and Cyprus are among the most comfortable countries for IT. On the other hand, Poland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, and many others are in the second category. They provide a comfortable environment for IT. However, there are fewer facilities in these countries as compared to the countries present in the first category. Plus, some communities prefer particular places simply because they can find friends from their native country there and, therefore, can easier adapt to new conditions. This way, Cyprus has become the best destination for relocating IT companies, especially, for the companies based in Eastern Europe.

Tax Policy and IT Legislation in Cyprus

Cyprus is one of the best countries in the world in terms of favorable IT tax policy and legislation. It is very simple to register a company on this island. “The most famous benefit of Cyprus in the world is the flexible taxation system and the implemented IP-Box regime,” says Sergey Kartashov. It offers the lowest corporate tax rate on net income, 12.5%, in the world. The companies only have to pay the Value Added Tax (VAT) of 19% if they sell a product or service to an EU resident. However, there is no VAT if the purchaser is a non-EU resident.

Other Benefits offered by Cyprus to IT Companies

It is very easy to reach the island from any other country located in Eastern Europe. The average flight time from any Eastern European county to Larnaca or Nicosia is less than three hours. Similarly, the flight timing from the island to any other EU country is the same as for Eastern European countries. “It allows the company’s management and its employees to quickly get home and also to other countries to resolve business issues,” notes Sergey Kartashov.

The relocation of foreign companies to Cyprus injected huge money into the economy of the island. It is helping to actively develop its infrastructure to improve facilities for the IT companies. The local real estate market is developing continuously over time. The residential and office rent costs here are very low as compared to other countries. A two-bedroom apartment costs $1300-$1400 per month in the center of the city. The island also has affordable health and schooling facilities for those who come here with their families. Last but not least, Cyprus has a great community of IT developers. It is famous for having a community of game developers and Russian-speaking developers.

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Adobe Unveils AI-Enhanced Mobile App for Content Creation

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Adobe has released a new mobile app called Adobe Express, which leverages generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) from Adobe Firefly to make content creation easier.

The company said in a press release on Thursday, April 18, that users would be able to create and distribute social media posts, videos, flyers, logos, and other types of content with the new mobile app.

According to the release, Govind Balakrishnan, senior vice president of Adobe Express and Digital Media Services, “brings the magic of Firefly generative AI directly into web and mobile content creation services.”

Per the release, the new mobile app is an all-in-one content editor that incorporates the photo, design, video, and GenAI tools from Adobe.

Users of any skill level can easily complete complex tasks with straightforward text prompts thanks to the app’s integration of the company’s Firefly GenAI, according to the release.

According to the release, you can use Text to Image to create images, Text Effects to generate text stylings, Generative Fill to add or remove objects from photos, and Text to Template to create editable templates.

According to the release, this is the first time these Firefly-powered features have been made available on mobile devices.

Balakrishnan stated in the release, “We’re excited to see a record number of customers turning to Adobe Express to promote their ideas, passions, and businesses through digital content and on TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, and other social platforms.”

A quarterly earnings call in March saw executives from Adobe announce that the company has been implementing GenAI features across its product lines for digital media, digital experience, publishing, and advertising.

All client segments have demonstrated a high level of demand for these features, according to the business. Since its launch in 2023, Firefly, for instance, has assisted users in creating over 6.5 billion images, vectors, designs, and text effects..

The content supply chain for businesses is set to be revolutionized by Adobe’s latest product launch, GenStudio and Firefly, which it announced in March along with additional GenAI capabilities.

New features in asset management, creation and production, delivery and activation, workflow and planning, insights and reporting, and asset management are among these additions. Their purpose is to furnish organizations with a cohesive and smooth content supply chain.

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Llama 3, a Dedicated AI Web Portal, is Announced by Meta

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On April 18, Meta made the announcement that Llama 3, its most recent large language model (LLM), had launched. It was hailed as a “major leap over Llama 2.”

According to the company, it has already released the first two models of the current version, which have 8B and 70B parameters. 400B parameters will be featured in future models.

A “large, high-quality training dataset” with over 15 trillion tokens—7 times larger and 4 times more code than Llama 2—was used to train Llama 3, as highlighted by Meta. To maintain the quality of the data, Llama 3 also includes filtering methods, such as NSFW filters.

Over half of the 12 use cases show that LLama 3 performs better than Llama 2 and rival models like Claude Sonnet from Anthropic, Mistral Medium, and Chat GPT-3.5 from OpenAI.

Text-based models comprised the initial releases of Llama 3. But multilingual and multimodal releases are on the way. “Core LLM capabilities” as defined by Meta will be exhibited by them, along with a longer context and improved reasoning and coding performance.

All significant cloud providers, model API providers, and other services will host Llama 3, according to the company’s plans. The product will be released “everywhere,” as planned.

Greater user Accessibility

Developers are the target audience for Llama 3, but Meta has also introduced new channels for end users in the US and over 12 other countries to access AI services.

A recent inclusion is a specialized website called Meta AI, where users can get homework help, trivia games, simulated job interviews, and writing help powered by AI.

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and other products from Meta are all integrated with Meta AI. Additionally, the service is available in the US through Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and the company has plans to expand it to include its Meta Quest VR headset.

The announcement of Meta’s expanded AI product line follows the release of updates to rival services. The competition between consumer-focused AI services progressed when ChatGPT upgraded to GPT-4 Turbo on April 11 and Microsoft Copilot upgraded to GPT-4 Turbo beginning in March.

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Reka AI Unveils Multimodal Language Model Competing Head-to-Head with Google’s Gemini

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Reka Core, the company’s first multimodal language model, was released by AI startup Reka AI. According to the company’s statement, Core is “competitive” with top models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google when it comes to industry-accepted metrics and can work with images, audio, and video.

Reka AI is a San Francisco-based startup with two Southeast Asian founders, and it was started by researchers from DeepMind, Google, and Meta. The chief scientist of the company is Yi Tay, a Singaporean, and the CEO, Dani Yogatama, is an Indonesian.

Reka Core is a large language model with “powerful” contextualized image, video, and audio understanding. According to the company, there are only two developers whose commercially available models support comprehensive multimodal input, the other being Google.

Reasoning skills, such as language and math, can be used for tasks requiring complex reasoning thanks to Core’s 128,000-token context window. Moreover, it is a code generator that enhances agent-based workflows.

Reka AI asserted that Core performs better on video tasks than Google’s Gemini Ultra, another multimodal model, when compared to comparable models available in the market. According to some, Core is also similar to GPT-4V on MMMU, an AI benchmark that assesses a model’s ability to complete tasks requiring reasoning and knowledge appropriate for a university.

Reka AI released its Edge and Flash models a few months prior to the release of Core. Together with Radical Ventures and DST Global Partners, the company has raised US$58 million in funding as of June 2023. The last known valuation of Reka AI is $300 million, according to market research platform CB Insights.

Reka AI’s partners include Snowflake, Oracle, and AI Singapore. On the basis of valuation per employee, it was recently ranked fifth among all AI firms worldwide.

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