Synthesia Raises $180M, OpenAI & Axios Team Up, François Chollet Launches Ndea - Daily AI Brief #81

Hi there,

In today's news, Synthesia secures a whopping $180 million, OpenAI and Axios are teaming up to revolutionize local news, and François Chollet has launched Ndea to push the boundaries of AGI development. And as you might have expected, CoreWeave and IBM are collaborating on an AI supercomputer once again.

Top stories

Synthesia Secures $180M, Valued at $2.1B

Synthesia, a London-based AI avatar startup, has raised $180 million in Series D funding, increasing its valuation to $2.1 billion. The funds will support expansion in Asia Pacific and product enhancement. Read more

OpenAI and Axios Collaborate on Local News

OpenAI has partnered with Axios to enhance local news coverage in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Boulder, and Huntsville by integrating AI tools into newsrooms. Read more

François Chollet Launches Ndea for AGI Development

François Chollet, known for creating Keras, is co-founding a new AI lab named Ndea with Mike Knoop, focusing on developing artificial general intelligence through program synthesis. Read more

CoreWeave and IBM Collaborate on AI Supercomputer

CoreWeave has partnered with IBM to create a new AI supercomputer using NVIDIA technology, aimed at advancing the training of IBM's Granite models. Read more

Synthesia Raises $180 Million for AI Video Avatars

British startup Synthesia has secured $180 million in funding, elevating its valuation to $2.1 billion. The company focuses on AI-generated video avatars for corporate training, with clients including DuPont, Xerox, and Spirit. Read more

Tech Giants Buy Unused Video for AI Training

Major tech companies, including Google and OpenAI, are purchasing unused video footage from creators to train AI models, paying between $1 and $4 per minute. This practice is facilitated by intermediaries like Troveo AI, reflecting a shift towards ethical data collection and monetization of unused content. Read more

MiniMax Research Releases Open-Source AI Models

MiniMax Research has introduced MiniMax-01, a series of open-source AI models with a 4 million token context window, available on GitHub and HuggingFace. Read more

Nvidia Invests $4 Million in MetAI

Nvidia has invested $4 million in MetAI, a Taiwanese startup focused on AI-powered digital twins for industrial use. This marks Nvidia's first investment in a Taiwanese company, supporting MetAI's R&D expansion and U.S. office establishment. Read more

Meta Aims to Surpass GPT-4 with Llama 3

Court filings reveal Meta's executives' focus on outperforming OpenAI's GPT-4 with the development of Llama 3, highlighting competitive strategies and data acquisition efforts. Read more

US Restricts AI Chip Exports, EU Concerns

The US has introduced a regulation limiting AI chip exports to specific countries, prompting EU officials to voice concerns over economic and security implications. Read more

OpenAI's AI Model o1 Uses Chinese in Processing

OpenAI's AI reasoning model, o1, has been noted to occasionally process thoughts in Chinese, even when questions are asked in English. Experts believe this may be due to the model's training data or its probabilistic language selection. Read more

Other Stories

• UK AI Sector Attracts £200 Million Daily in Private Investment

• ControlMonkey Launches AI Cloud Platform in U.S.

• UK Activates AI System to Monitor Undersea Threats

• AUDAVIS Raises €1.1 Million for AI Auditing

• Reeco Secures $15 Million in Series A Funding

• YTL Digital Bank and Sea Limited Launch Malaysia's First AI-PowereDigital Bank

• Privasea Secures $15M for DeepSea AI Network

• Alibaba Qwen Team Unveils New Mathematical Reasoning Models

• Aligned Data Centers Secures $12 Billion for AI Infrastructure

• Cisco Launches AI Defense for Enterprise Security

• note inc. Partners with Google for AI Creator Support

• Taiwan Excluded from US AI Export Restrictions

• Aurigo Software Launches AI Platform Lumina

• Srini Rajamani Appointed CEO of Opus Technologies

• AISI Seeks Comments on AI Misuse Risk Document

• Telstra and Accenture Form AI Joint Venture

• Qbiq Secures $16M for AI Architectural Design

• Maki Secures €26M for AI HR Tools

• EPAM Systems Expands Partnership with Google Cloud

• SEEQC Secures $30M for Quantum Chip Development

• Arva AI Secures $3 Million in Seed Funding

• OpenAI Updates Policy Document

• Peter Sarlin Donates 10 Million Euros for AI Professorships

• Colossal Biosciences Achieves $10.2 Billion Valuation

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