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The Year That Big Tech Joined Forces With AI Startups

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The Year That Big Tech Joined Forces With AI Startups

Throughout the year, a new wave of artificial intelligence startups has upended Silicon Valley and the larger business community, but one thing has remained constant: Big Tech continues to hold sway.

Following Microsoft Corp.’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI in January, other tech behemoths hurried to collaborate with top AI startups via funding and cloud computing agreements. At a $4.5 billion valuation, Salesforce Inc. spearheaded a round in Hugging Face. Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. made billion-dollar investments in Anthropic, an OpenAI rival. And it appeared that Nvidia Corp. supported nearly all notable AI startups.

Ultimately, this means that a large number of the most promising AI startups now rely significantly on the traditional tech industry heavyweights for infrastructure and funding. Regulators are beginning to take notice of that dynamic.

Competition authorities in the US and the UK are once again scrutinizing Microsoft’s collaboration with OpenAI. The Biden administration has assigned the US Federal Trade Commission the responsibility of advancing “a fair, open, and competitive AI ecosystem.” Regarding the question of whether or not large cloud computing contracts are anti-competitive, the agency has previously asked for public input.

“What regulators might be concerned about is that the story of Big Tech’s strategic investment in AI startups could have the potential to become the story of Big Tech’s AI monopoly,” stated Ngor Luong, a senior research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies who specializes in AI investment trends.

These agreements with Big Tech can be an important lifeline for AI companies. The technology that powers AI chatbots like ChatGPT, large language models, is very expensive and computationally demanding to build. Big tech companies belong to the small group of companies that have the resources and infrastructure to back these initiatives.

These acquisitions can help Big Tech companies maintain control over a competitive and quickly changing market, as some were taken aback by the tremendous success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT a year ago. Tech behemoths can increase demand for their goods through these alliances, whether it’s Nvidia’s chips or Microsoft, Google, and Amazon’s cloud computing services.

In a blog post this month, Nvidia said it has made “more than two dozen investments” this year. “These partnerships stimulate joint innovation, enhance the NVIDIA platform and expand the ecosystem,” the company said.

Apart from OpenAI, Microsoft has also made investments in billion-dollar AI startups like Adept and Inflection AI. However, these transactions pale in comparison to the $13 billion that Microsoft has already committed to the ChatGPT company.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was briefly fired in November, a move that highlighted Microsoft’s special relationship with the startup. Along with other investors, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was a major factor in getting the board to change its mind. Microsoft had previously declared that it would bring on Altman and his OpenAI colleagues to establish a new Microsoft AI division.

Microsoft clarified that it does not hold a conventional stake in OpenAI in response to regulators’ concerns. The company stated last week that “it is important to note that Microsoft does not own any portion of OpenAI and is simply entitled to a share of profit distributions.”

While Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon have all been actively supporting AI startups this year, Apple Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. have been largely absent from these kinds of transactions.

Apple Inc. launched an internal chatbot known as “Apple GPT” and developed its own large language model known as Ajax. In the meantime, Meta has partnered with Microsoft and Amazon in addition to having an open source large language model.

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Google Introduces AI Model for Precise Weather Forecasting

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With the confirmation of the release of an AI-based weather forecasting model that can anticipate subtle changes in the weather, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is taking a bigger step into the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Known as the Scalable Ensemble Envelope Diffusion Sampler (SEEDS), Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) model is remarkably similar to other diffusion models and popular large language models (LLMs).

In a paper published in Science Advances, it is stated that SEEDS is capable of producing ensembles of weather forecasts at a scale that surpasses that of conventional forecasting systems. The artificial intelligence system uses probabilistic diffusion models, which are similar to image and video generators like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion.

The announcement said, “We present SEEDS, [a] new AI technology to accelerate and improve weather forecasts using diffusion models.” “Using SEEDS, the computational cost of creating ensemble forecasts and improving the characterization of uncommon or extreme weather events can be significantly reduced.”

Google’s cutting-edge denoising diffusion probabilistic models, which enable it to produce accurate weather forecasts, set SEEDS apart. According to the research paper, SEEDS can generate a large pool of predictions with just one forecast from a reliable numerical weather prediction system.

When compared to weather prediction systems based on physics, SEEDS predictions show better results based on metrics such as root-mean-square error (RMSE), rank histogram, and continuous ranked probability score (CRPS).

In addition to producing better results, the report characterizes the computational cost of the model as “negligible,” meaning it cannot be compared to traditional models. According to Google Research, SEEDS offers the benefits of scalability while covering extreme events like heat waves better than its competitors.

The report stated, “Specifically, by providing samples of weather states exceeding a given threshold for any user-defined diagnostic, our highly scalable generative approach enables the creation of very large ensembles that can characterize very rare events.”

Using Technology to Protect the Environment

Many environmentalists have turned to artificial intelligence (AI) since it became widely available to further their efforts to save the environment. AI models are being used by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to forecast weather patterns in an effort to mitigate the effects of pollution.

With its meteorological department eager to use cutting-edge technologies to forecast weather events like flash floods and droughts, India is likewise traveling down the same route. Equipped with cutting-edge advancements, Australia-based nonprofit ClimateForce, in collaboration with NTT Group, says it will employ artificial intelligence (AI) to protect the Daintree rainforest’s ecological equilibrium.

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Apple may be Introducing AI Hardware for the First time with the New IPad Pro

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With the release of the new iPad Pro, Apple is poised to accelerate its transition towards artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. With the intention of releasing the M4 chip later this year, the company is expediting its upgrades to computer processors. With its new neural engine, this chip should enable more sophisticated AI capabilities.

According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, the M4 chip will not only be found in Mac computers but will also be included in the upcoming iPad Pro. It appears that Apple is responding to the recent AI boom in the tech industry by positioning the iPad Pro as its first truly AI-powered device.

The new iPad Pro will be unveiled by Apple ahead of its June Worldwide Developers Conference, which will free it up to reveal its AI chip strategy. The AI apps and services that will be a part of iPadOS 18, which is anticipated later this year, are also anticipated to be utilized by the M4 chip and the new iPad Pros.

May 7 at 7:30 PM IST is when the next Let Loose event is scheduled to take place. Live streaming of the event will be available on Apple.com and the Apple TV app.

AI is also expected to play a major role in Apple’s A18 chip design for the iPhone 16. It is important to acknowledge that these recent products are not solely designed and developed with artificial intelligence in mind, and this may be a tactic employed for marketing purposes. According to reports, more sophisticated gear is on the way. Apple reportedly developed a home robot and a tablet iPad that could be controlled by a robotic arm.

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AI Features of the Google Pixel 8a Leaked before the Device’s Planned Release

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A new smartphone from Google is anticipated to be unveiled during its May 14–15 I/O conference. The forthcoming device, dubbed Pixel 8a, will be a more subdued version of the Pixel 8. Despite being frequently spotted online, the smartphone has not yet received any official announcements from the company. A promotional video that was leaked is showcasing the AI features of the Pixel 8a, just weeks before its much-anticipated release. Furthermore, internet leaks have disclosed software support and special features.

Tipster Steve Hemmerstoffer obtained a promotional video for the Pixel 8a through MySmartPrice. The forthcoming smartphone is anticipated to include certain Pixel-only features, some of which are demonstrated in the video. As per the video, the Pixel 8a will support Google’s Best Take feature, which substitutes faces from multiple group photos or burst photos to “replace” faces that have their eyes closed or display undesirable expressions.

There will be support for Circle to Search on the Pixel 8a, a feature that is presently present on some Pixel and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Additionally, the leaked video implies that the smartphone will come equipped with Google’s Audio Magic Eraser, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for eliminating unwanted background noise from recorded videos. In addition, as shown in the video, the Pixel 8a will support live translation during voice calls.

The phone will have “seven years of security updates” and the Tensor G3 chip, according to the leaked teasers. It’s unclear, though, if the phone will get the same amount of Android OS updates as the more expensive Pixel 8 series phones that have the same processor. In the days preceding its planned May 14 launch, the company is anticipated to disclose additional information about the device.

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