Salesforce Inc’s venture capital arm is launching a US$250 million fund, its largest to date, to invest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups.
Salesforce Ventures has previously invested in companies that have gone public, including Zoom Video Communications Inc, Snowflake Inc and DocuSign Inc. Such investments might become more important for the software company, as large acquisitions appear to be off-the-table due to pressure from activist investors.
The fund will be focused on “nurturing the next generation of generative AI start-ups,” Clara Shih (史宗瑋), chief executive officer of Salesforce’s service cloud, said in a briefing with reporters.
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The enterprise giant based in San Francisco on Tuesday also unveiled new generative AI tools for functions, such as drafting customer service responses or initial sales e-mails. Dubbed Einstein GPT, the new tools are integrated with OpenAI’s generative models.
After OpenAI’s ChatGPT gripped the technology industry’s imagination late last year, many large firms have sprinted to announce features taking advantage of AI that generates content. Last month alone, Microsoft Corp integrated OpenAI technology into the Bing search engine, Google announced its ChatGPT rival Bard, Meta Platforms Inc released one of its large language models under an open-source license and Snapchat Inc unveiled a generative tool for socializing.
On Tuesday, the AI Education Project (aiEDU), a nonprofit backed by companies such as Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and AT&T Inc, announced a national call for AI education, with an expanded list of backers and partner schools at the South by Southwest EDU conference in Austin, Texas.
So far, aiEDU has reached 100,000 students and has relationships with districts representing 1.5 million low-income and underserved children across the US.
Other backers include Nvidia Corp, Intel Corp, GSV Ventures, Verizon Communications Inc, and nonprofits such as Teach for America and the Boys and Girls Club.
“People may not be replaced by AI directly, but people will be replaced by people that are proficient users of artificial intelligence,” aiEDU chief executive officer Alex Kotran said.
“So students who have no experience or no knowledge of how to use a tool, have no experience creating projects with generative AI, are going to totally be outclassed by students who have,” Kotran said.
ASML Holding NV’s new advanced chip machines have a daunting price tag, said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), one of the Dutch company’s biggest clients. “The cost is very high,” TSMC senior vice president Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, referring to ASML’s latest system known as high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV). “I like the high-NA EUV’s capability, but I don’t like the sticker price,” Zhang said. ASML’s new chip machine can imprint semiconductors with lines that are just 8 nanometers thick — 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The machines cost 350 million euros (US$378 million)
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are