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- Microsoft's $1.5B AI power play
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
The world of AI is no stranger to high-stakes deals, but Microsoft's latest investment in a UAE AI firm takes things to a whole new level.
With a $1.5B investment in G42, Microsoft not only gains access to the wealth of the Gulf region — but also strikes a blow against China's AI influence. Let’s investigate…
In today’s AI rundown:
Microsoft invests $1.5B in UAE AI firm
AMD and Nvidia unveil new processors
Access the best open-source LLM for free
InstantMesh enables 3D generation in seconds
6 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
MICROSOFT
Image source: G42
The Rundown: Microsoft just agreed to invest $1.5B in G42, an Abu Dhabi-based AI firm previously under investigation from the U.S. for its ties to China.
The details:
Microsoft receives a minority stake in G42 and a seat on its board, while G42 will use Microsoft’s cloud for developing and deploying AI.
The deal reportedly required negotiations with the Biden administration due to concerns over G42's China links.
G42 committed to removing China-based Huawei from its systems and adhering to a security arrangement that protects the AI products shared.
Microsoft unlocks access to massive wealth in the Gulf region, as the UAE pushes to become a major player in the AI industry.
Why it matters: The Microsoft-G42 deal on the surface reads like your typical strategic investment, but a geopolitical high-stakes dance lurks beneath. With G42, the U.S. strikes a new blow in its effort to limit China’s access and influence in the AI race — while gaining powerful new partners in the powerful Gulf region.
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AMD
Image source: CNN
The Rundown: AMD just announced its latest Ryzen PRO mobile and desktop processors — with rival Nvidia also unveiling new AI-focused GPUs on the same day.
The details:
AMD's new Ryzen PRO 8040 mobile processors and 8000 desktop processors are designed to deliver enhanced performance and AI capabilities.
AMD hailed the 8000 release as the world’s first ‘AI-enabled desktop processor’ for business users.
The processors are expected to compete with releases from Nvidia and Intel.
NVIDIA also announced its own AI-focused GPUs, the RTX A400 and RTX A1000, bringing advanced AI capabilities to a range of computers.
Why it matters: While Nvidia garners the hype, both AMD and Intel continue to push the market leader. Even more interesting, given the dueling announcements, is that AMD’s CEO Lisa Su is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s cousin — making this particular rivalry a unique family affair.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to access Command R+, the highest-ranking open-source LLM that tops the older versions of GPT-4 on human evaluation rankings.
Step-by-step:
Visit the Cohere Playground.
You will need to sign in or sign up for free using your email.
Use the different options on the right to change the model, add a preamble, change its randomness (temperature), and even allow connectors (RAG).
That’s it! You can now enjoy 128k context length, great AI coding capabilities, and multi-language support 🎉
PRESENTED BY CODESIGNAL
The Rundown: CodeSignal just launched a new ‘AI Theory and Coding’ learning path, designed to help master the underlying algorithms of Machine Learning.
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AI RESEARCH
Image source: Tencent
The Rundown: Researchers from Tencent just developed InstantMesh, a new open-source AI system that creates detailed 3D models from a single 2D image in under 10 seconds.
The details:
InstantMesh uses a diffusion model to generate multiple 2D views of an object from a single image.
From multiple 2D views, a reconstruction model then creates a 3D mesh.
A specialized module called FlexiCubes allows InstantMesh to apply geometric info like depth and surface, resulting in smoother outputs.
Why it matters: The ability to quickly and easily create high-quality 3D models has massive implications across sectors like gaming, animation, e-commerce, and more. What was once a labor-intensive, specialized task is about to become near instantaneous as these breakthroughs continue.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
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🚀 Capitol AI - Bring Stories to Life, visualize scripts and storyboards
📢 Fiddler AI - Product Marketing Manager
🎨 C3 AI - Product Designer, Design Systems (Early Professional)
🛩️ Shield AI - Aerodynamics & Performance Engineer
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QUICK HITS
Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner called for leading AI firms to be required to ‘share information about what they are building’ and allow independent auditors to scrutinize their work.
Baidu revealed that its Ernie chatbot has surpassed 200M users, marking a milestone for the LLM market in China.
The Bezos Earth Fund announced the AI for Climate and Nature Grand Challenge, committing $100M in grants to leverage AI in combating climate change and enhancing biodiversity.
20VC posted an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and COO Brad Lightcap, with commentary on building startups in the AI era, how businesses can adapt, and additional insights.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said AI will soon be able to ‘replicate and survive in the wild’ during an interview with the NYT.
Amazon Music launched a beta of Maestro, an AI tool allowing users to create unique playlists based on prompts with keywords, emojis, emotions, activities, or sounds.
Hugging Face debuted Idefics2, an 8B parameter open-source vision-language model that sets new benchmarks in visual question answering.
THAT’S A WRAP
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