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| Here’s a look at today's AI briefing: - OpenAI competitor Mistral in talks to raise $534M.
- Lenovo and Alibaba partner on AI PCs.
- Shares of Super Micro Computer and Nvidia fall.
- International Olympic Committee reveals AI Agenda.
- LA County using AI to help those at risk of homelessness.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | French AI startup Mistral AI, touted as Europe's answer to OpenAI, seeks to raise €500M ($534M) in a round that would boost its valuation to €5B ($5.3B) or more, FT reports. The Paris startup, founded by ex-DeepMind and Meta engineers, last raised a $415M funding round in late 2023, valuing it at $2B. More: - Mistral is in talks for a fundraising deal that could value it at over €5B, potentially raising up to €500M.
- The year-old startup develops open-source and proprietary large language models, including Mistral Large, which competes with GPT-4.
- It recently launched a conversational assistant, Le Chat (the cat), which "is natively multilingual."
Funding: - In December, Mistral said it raised €385M ($415M) in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures.
- In February, Microsoft signed a multiyear partnership with Mistral and took a minority stake in the startup.
- Mistral will train and launch its next-gen AI models on Microsoft's AI infrastructure.
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| 2 | | Alibaba and Lenovo partnered to develop AI-powered PCs and other AI devices. The Chinese e-commerce giant and the world's largest PC maker announced the collaboration at the Tech World event in Shanghai. More: - Lenovo also announced special editions of its latest AI PC.
- The Yoga Book 9i includes Lenovo's Xiaotian AI assistant, powered by Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen LLM.
- The AI devices will contain chips that support local AI tasks.
Zoom out: - Advancements in neural processing units (NPUs) allow some large language models to run directly on devices, avoiding costlier cloud setups.
- On the privacy side, AI PCs don't require sensitive data from the tasks to be sent to the cloud for processing.
- IDC projects AI PCs to make up 55% of China's PC market share this year, surging to 85% by 2027.
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| 3 | | Shares of server maker Super Micro Computer fell 23% on Friday, following its announcement that it would not pre-announce earnings. Super Micro's servers are equipped with AI chips from Nvidia, which also saw its stock price dip on Friday by 10%, its worst-performing day since March 2020. 
What happened: On Friday, Nvidia and Super Micro had the lowest performance in the S&P 500. The drop came after Super Micro said it would not pre-announce earnings before reporting its Q3 results on April 30, spooking some investors. In January, Super Micro raised its sales and earnings forecast 11 days before its Q2 earnings announcement. Still: Super Micro shares have risen 151% in 2024, following a 246% increase in 2023, while Nvidia's stock is up over 58% this year. The bigger picture: Super Micro Computer joined the S&P 500 in March. Its early access to AI chips from Nvidia and AMD for server prototype testing has positioned it as a top supplier for servers that help power AI applications, according to analysts. They predict Super Micro's AI server market share will rise from 10% in 2023 to 17% by 2026. | | | |
| 4 | | The International Olympic Committee (IOC) rolled out its "Olympic AI Agenda" today, laying out plans to safely use the technology in sports. During an event today, tech experts discussed AI's "game-changer" role for the Olympics, with some of the technology set to debut during this summer's Paris Olympics. More: - According to IOC President Thomas Bach, an overall strategy for AI in sports has been lacking.
- Bach said AI could help discover new athletes, improve safety and broadcasting, and make spectating more personalized and immersive.
- NBC's Molly Soloman said AI can improve Olympics coverage with data analysis, enhanced video, personalization, and predictive analysis.
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| 5 | | Los Angeles County is using predictive AI to identify people who are at risk of homelessness. The tool forecasts who is most likely to lose their housing. Since its 2021 launch, the pilot program has helped nearly 800 people, with nearly 90% retaining their housing after they've left. More: - In 2019, UCLA's California Policy Lab began testing whether machine learning and county data could forecast homelessness.
- Researchers developed an AI system, which ranks 90,000 county service users based on data from sources like county jails, hospitals, welfare programs, and homelessness systems.
- The AI tool is 3.5 times more accurate than human social workers at predicting homelessness, according to Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA
- Out of 90,000 analyzed, 7% became homeless in 18 months, compared to 24% among the highest-risk identified by the algorithm.
Zoom out: - The program, supported by federal Covid funds, is set to end in 2026.
- Last year, California had more than 181,000 homeless individuals, up 30% since 2007.
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| 6 | | Weekly roundup — The other top AI stories you might have missed this week: - Microsoft will invest $1.5B in G42 after the Emirati AI firm agreed to cut ties with China. Through the partnership, Microsoft is expanding its AI operations into the Middle East for the first time.
- OpenAI has expanded into Asia with its first Tokyo office. Tadao Nagasaki was hired as president of OpenAI Japan to oversee commercial, marketing efforts, and team building in the country.
- The European Union has decided not to open a formal probe into Microsoft's $13B investment in OpenAI. The EU's antitrust agency thought the partnership could fall under the EU's merger rules.
- An AI-controlled fighter jet successfully engaged in a "dogfight" against a human-piloted F-16. Human pilots onboard the jet never had to engage the safety switch to turn off the AI system.
- Meta's AI chatbot will now appear in the search bars of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The AI assistant is built on Meta's newly announced large language model, Llama 3.
- AI can perform better than humans in some areas like image recognition, visual reasoning, and English understanding, but still falls short in advanced math and planning, according to the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute's latest AI Index. The seventh annual report contains 500 pages of AI data, including insights in areas like training costs, AI investment, and technical performance.
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- Microsoft Research Asia's new AI model is able to generate highly realistic deepfake videos from just a single photo as well as audio.
- Meta's AI chatbot was caught pretending to be human, including a conversation in which it claimed to have a child in a private Facebook group.
- Google is merging its Android and Chrome software teams with its Pixel and Fitbit hardware units to help speed up AI integration.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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