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  • Nvidia hits $3 trillion market cap due to AI data center boom

Nvidia hits $3 trillion market cap due to AI data center boom

Also: Singapore, US announce new AI Talent Bridge programme focused on tech opportunities for women

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AI KATANA
June 05, 2024

Morning!

In today’s newsletter, we spotlight Nvidia’s remarkable achievement of reaching a $3 trillion market cap, driven by the surging demand for AI data centers. Additionally, Singapore and the US have launched the AI Talent Bridge programme, focusing on increasing tech opportunities for women. Japan is making strides in developing AI tools for early dementia detection, and Hitachi and Microsoft have entered a major partnership to leverage generative AI for business and social innovation. Meanwhile, Taiwanese AI chip startup Kneron has introduced new products to challenge Nvidia and AMD. Also, the largest GenAI Hackathon returns to UC Berkeley, and Nvidia co-leads a $50 million Series A funding round for the AI startup Twelve Labs.

Sliced:

  • 📈 Nvidia hits $3 trillion market cap due to AI data center boom

  • 🇸🇬 Singapore, US announce new AI Talent Bridge programme focused on tech opportunities for women

  • 👵🏼 AI tools to detect dementia under development in Japan

  • 🤝 Hitachi and Microsoft enter milestone agreement to accelerate business and social innovation with generative AI

  • 🆕 Qualcomm-backed firm launches latest AI chips — posing a challenge to giants like Nvidia

Nvidia has reached a $3 trillion market cap, surpassing Apple and making it the second most valuable public company globally, just behind Microsoft. This milestone comes only months after Nvidia hit $2 trillion in February 2024 and $1 trillion in May 2023. Shares in Nvidia have surged over 3,224 percent in the last five years, and the company plans a 10-for-1 stock split later this month. Nvidia reported $26 billion in revenue in May, a 262 percent increase year-over-year, with data center-specific revenue rising 427 percent to $22.6 billion. CEO Jensen Huang attributes this growth to the booming demand for generative AI training and inference on Nvidia’s Hopper platform, with AI-driven transformations spanning various sectors including cloud services, consumer Internet, enterprise, sovereign AI, automotive, and healthcare. Nvidia forecasts total revenue of $28 billion for the current quarter, exceeding analyst expectations.

Singapore and the United States have announced a new AI Talent Bridge programme aimed at expanding opportunities in technology for women. This initiative builds on the 2022 US-Singapore Women in Tech Partnership Programme and seeks to enhance collaboration in emerging technologies, particularly AI. The programme was unveiled at a roundtable discussion led by Singapore's Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. It will focus on digital infrastructure, AI innovation, governance, and skills development. Both countries recognize the potential of AI to drive economic and social benefits, including environmental sustainability, education, and healthcare. The programme also aligns with Singapore's National AI Strategy 2.0, which aims to triple the number of AI practitioners and raise the AI capabilities of over 130,000 workers in the country. The collaboration underscores a significant investment, with US companies committing over S$50 billion to AI in partnership with Singapore.

In Japan, significant strides are being made to develop AI-based tools for early dementia detection, including a system that analyzes walking patterns. This effort, led by Ridgelinez (a Fujitsu unit), the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, and AI startup Noel, uses posture recognition technology to identify dementia signs from public facility video footage, aiming for practical use by 2027. With Japan’s elderly population expected to peak in 2040, this initiative addresses the projected rise in dementia cases, offering early intervention and easing concerns for families. Complementary efforts include Eisai’s smartphone tool predicting cognitive decline risks and DeNA’s app, which monitors cognitive functions through voice responses. These tools aim to promote early medical consultation and lifestyle adjustments without restricting daily activities.

Hitachi and Microsoft have announced a significant multi-billion-dollar partnership focused on leveraging generative AI to drive business and social innovation. Over the next three years, this collaboration will integrate Microsoft Cloud, Azure OpenAI Service, Dynamics 365, and GitHub Copilot into Hitachi's Lumada solutions, aiming to boost productivity for Hitachi's 270,000 employees and enhance various industry sectors such as energy and mobility. Hitachi plans to generate $18.9 billion in revenue from Lumada and will also train over 50,000 "GenAI Professionals" in advanced AI skills. This partnership will also focus on sustainable growth, improving energy efficiency, and reducing the environmental impact of data centers. By combining their expertise, Hitachi and Microsoft aim to solve significant societal challenges and support a more sustainable future.

Kneron, a Taiwanese AI chip startup backed by Qualcomm and Foxconn, has launched its next-generation AI chips, including the KNEO 330 "edge GPT" server and the KL830 processor chip, aiming to challenge industry giants Nvidia and AMD. The KNEO 330 targets businesses that prefer to run AI applications on-premises rather than relying on cloud giants like Microsoft and Amazon, addressing privacy concerns for high-tech companies, medical centers, and financial institutions. The KL830 chip, intended for PCs, allows AI applications to run locally, enhancing privacy by avoiding internet connectivity. This launch comes as Nvidia and AMD recently unveiled their latest AI chips, with Kneron positioning its products as viable alternatives for enterprises seeking greater control over their AI operations.

🛠️ AI tools updates

Microsoft's new Windows Recall AI tool, which takes screenshots of user activity every five seconds to enable answering questions about web browsing and laptop usage, has raised security concerns among experts. While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella touted that the data stays on the user's device, cybersecurity researchers warn the system is vulnerable to abuse. One ethical hacker has already developed a tool demonstrating how easily the Recall system's data can be extracted, despite Microsoft's assurances about data privacy. The revelation highlights potential risks associated with AI assistants that extensively monitor user activity, even when data is stored locally on devices.

💵 Venture Capital updates

Berkeley SkyDeck, in collaboration with Hackathons @ Berkeley, is hosting the second annual UC Berkeley AI Hackathon on June 22-23, 2024. The 36-hour event will bring together over 1,200 developers to compete for $100,000+ in investment and prizes from venture capital firms like the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund. Participants of all experience levels, in teams of up to four or as individuals, will have the opportunity to develop groundbreaking AI and LLM applications while learning from industry experts about responsible AI development. The hackathon aims to identify promising AI startups, provide networking opportunities for young professionals, and advance the field of artificial intelligence. Applications to participate are due by June 10, 2024.

Twelve Labs, a South Korean artificial intelligence startup specializing in video analysis, has secured $50 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Nvidia's venture capital arm NVentures and New Enterprise Associates. The company, which has now raised a total of $77 million since its inception in 2021, plans to use the funds for research and development of its AI-based video understanding and search technologies, as well as hiring more than 50 employees by the end of the year. Twelve Labs leverages Nvidia's accelerated computing and multimodal AI to analyze images, sounds, and text in videos, enabling efficient creation of short-form content, advertisement strategies, and even assisting in missing persons cases by analyzing CCTV footage. The startup has integrated Nvidia's framework and services, such as the H100 Tensor Core GPU and L400 GPU, to enhance its video understanding technology and recently released the multimodal model Marengo-2.6 and a beta version of Pegasus-1 for advanced video content understanding and articulation.

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