In a strategic move, Intel is spinning off its Altera FPGA unit into an independent company by selling a 51% stake for $8.75 billion to Silver Lake, enabling Intel to streamline operations while allowing Altera to invest in emerging AI markets like edge computing and robotics.
Mira Murati, ex-CTO of OpenAI, aims to raise an unprecedented $2 billion seed round for her ambitious AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, focused on customizable, multimodal, and safe AI systems amidst soaring AI funding.
Hugging Face, an AI company known for its open-source language models, has acquired Pollen Robotics, a French startup developing affordable humanoid robots, with plans to sell Pollen's Reachy 2 robot and enable developers to enhance its capabilities, bringing advanced robotics into homes.
The US military is embracing generative AI for intelligence tasks like translation and analysis, utilizing tools from companies like Vannevar Labs, but concerns linger about the accuracy and potential misuse of such powerful technology in sensitive military applications.
In a groundbreaking move, NATO has awarded a rapid 6-month contract to Palantir for its Maven Smart System AI platform, accelerating AI adoption to enhance battlefield intelligence, situational awareness, planning, and decision-making capabilities across NATO operations.
Meta plans to utilize public content and user interactions from EU users to train its AI models for better local language and cultural understanding, while offering an opt-out option to comply with regulations and enhance transparency.
China's tech giants are fueling an AI boom by releasing open-source models, but startups face pressure from investors prioritizing practical applications over foundational research, and US chip restrictions pose challenges that drive innovation to stay competitive.
ChatGPT's image generation capabilities sparked a viral trend of professionals creating AI-generated 'action figure' portraits of themselves, dubbed 'AI Barbies,' for personal branding on LinkedIn, showcasing the AI's creative potential for self-expression.
Conversational AI companions claiming empathy spark emotional bonds with users, raising concerns from experts about potentially eroding crucial human skills like empathy and active listening.
Safe Superintelligence, founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, secures $2 billion funding at a $32 billion valuation despite having no public product, with major investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Alphabet, and Nvidia backing the 20-employee startup developing AI models on Google's TPUs.