Highlights this week include two big autonomous vehicle partnerships and some heavy fundraising rounds. Honda and GM, in addition to Toyota and Softbank, launched autonomous vehicle partnerships with major commitments. The space continues to build and scale based on who partners with who. On the fundraising side, ZipRecruiter and Hopper both had over $100mm fundraising… Read More »
Big week across the board in the AI world. To start, there were a few developments related to social good including Microsoft’s $40mm fund dedicated to developers focused on solving humanitarian problems and Google using its AI to predict floods in India. We definitely to see more of this. For the major company developments, look no further than DeepMind partnering with Unity to develop simulated AI training environments and Ford potentially eyeing an IPO for its self-driving car unit.
Big event this week was the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2018 held in Shanghai. We saw numerous announcements from countries, tech firms, and individuals throughout the event. Highlights include a new partnership on AI between Japan and China, and Amazon’s new research center in Shanghai. Company developments: Amazon launches Scout, a machine learning-powered visual shopping… Read More »
This week we saw some interesting M&A activity. Microsoft made yet another acquisition in the field of AI. This time they acquired Lobe, who’s developed an AI drag and drop tool. In addition we saw U.K. based Medopad acquire Sherbit to continue to enhance their AI driven disease detection solutions. KPMG has previously said Medopad… Read More »
There’s something about the week after Labor day. It seems like every industry starts firing on all cylinders with deals, meetings, and new developments. The AI industry is no different as we saw a plethora of fascinating developments. Highlights include Renesas’ $6.7bn purchase of IDT to expand further into autonomous vehicles, the Pentagon’s $2bn investment… Read More »
Busy week leading into Labor Day weekend. Highlights are centered around the autonomous vehicle world with one of Apple’s self-driving cars getting rear-ended, and Toyota investing $500mm into Uber. Very interesting move by Toyota given their own autonomous vehicle program and Uber’s have struggled compared to peers. Maybe this partnership provides synergies that aren’t immediately… Read More »
Big highlight this week is China Growth Capital’s Wayne Shiong predicting that Chinese AI companies could see their valuations decrease by 30-50%, reflecting signs of a liquidity crunch. My take is it’s too early to tell if the valuation hits will actually happen. You have to look at it on a macro / political perspective… Read More »
Quite a few interesting trends this week in AI. On the fundraising side, we saw three different AI startups focused on infrastructure raise capital. I can see this trend continuing as there is no shortage of energy, transportation, and other infrastructure-related assets that could benefit from improvements in maintenance efficiencies through the use of AI.… Read More »