It’s perhaps the largest signal yet that generative artificial intelligence model providers aren’t going to get a free content ride: Record labels this week sued two AI music generators, and this one may prove to be the massive battle over AI and copyright.
Meantime, the European Union is putting more heat on Microsoft, and it’s clear those efforts won’t be the last — especially if its execs keep saying things like this. Apple isn’t escaping regulators’ scrutiny either, though in the most recent case, it’s not about AI.
Still, nobody’s slowing down the gen AI freight train. Amazon — which just hit a $2 trillion market capitalization — is working on a brand new AI chatbot, perhaps an AI agent, while Google zeroed in on enterprise with wider availability of several Gemini models. And investors proceed to bet big on the picks and axes, providing several AI chip upstarts sizable recent funding.
The U.S. Supreme Court surprised many individuals this week by ruling that the feds can keep riding herd on social media misinformation. Who desires to bet whether that can make any difference on this election?
On the mainstream enterprise front, Broadcom is trying to simplify VMware products, but will that calm customers?
This and other news will likely be discussed in depth on John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast theCUBE Pod, out this afternoon on YouTube. Also, don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive, Breaking Evaluation, due out this weekend.
Here’s the week’s news and evaluation from SiliconANGLE and beyond:
AI and data: Copyright battles intensify
Marquee news
Record labels file lawsuits against AI music generators Suno and Udio, alleging widespread copyright infringement This one may very well be a giant deal. Incumbent providers, particularly the entertainment and news industries, have an extended history of being sensitive to copyright violations, case law that not less than gives them some potential recourse, and a lot of lawyers to fight it — and have seen this tech playbook before with Google, Uber, Airbnb, Napster and lots of more.
Meantime, Microsoft thinks web content is free for the taking: Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman describes content on the open web as ‘freeware’
And regulators proceed to circle AI partnerships: Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership could face EU antitrust investigation
Perplexity isn’t making any friends either. In accordance with Wired: Amazon is investigating Perplexity over claims of scraping abuse
Amazon reportedly working on recent AI chatbot to compete with ChatGPT
Google sets sights on the enterprise with wider releases of Gemini 1.5 Flash, 1.5 Pro and Imagen 3
Google uses AI to bring 110 recent languages to Translate
Rivals Apple and Meta Platforms reportedly discussing generative AI partnership
OpenAI’s CriticGPT uses generative AI to identify errors in generative AI’s outputs
Meta’s recent LLM Compiler could transform the way in which software is compiled and optimized
AI beats students in UK university exams, fooling human educators
Cautionary note from the WSJ: AI work assistants need numerous handholding
Social media god Mark Zuckerberg accuses closed-source AI model makers of attempting to create God
Ugh. The dearth of imagination on how best to make use of AI continues to be astonishing. We’re still within the “you may store your recipes on it” era of generative AI: An AI version of Al Michaels will deliver Olympic recaps on Peacock
Money matters
Saved by the bell: Stability AI appoints recent CEO and closes funding round reportedly price $80M
SoftBank to speculate $10M to $20M in search startup Perplexity AI as a part of $250M round, at $3B valuation, Bloomberg reports
AI pioneer and Amazon director Andrew Ng plans to raise $120M for next AI Fund
The AI chips keep coming:
Transformer model chipmaker Etched.ai raises $120M to challenge Nvidia’s market dominance
Innatera books $21M in funding for its ultra-low-power AI chips
AI chip startup Axelera raises $68M to broaden offerings from edge to cloud
Investors are betting big on AI for drug discovery, as these two big fundings show:
AI-powered drug development startup Formation Bio raises $372M
EvolutionaryScale raises $142M in seed funding to speed up AI-powered protein discovery
CData raises $350M in growth capital to reinforce data connectivity solutions
OpenAI acquires developer collaboration startup Multi
AI startup Emergence AI raises a ton of money to reinforce office employee productivity
Hebbia raises nearly $100M Series B for AI-powered document search, per TechCrunch
Klarity Intelligence raises $70M to automate the document review process
Open lakehouse provider Onehouse lands $35M funding round
Orby AI raises $30M to take business process automation to the following level with generative AI
Norm Ai raises $27M to assist businesses handle regulatory compliance with AI agents
Illumex raises $13M so as to add more meaning and context to structured data utilized by generative AI
Dappier raises $2M in seed funding for its AI data marketplace I feel we’re going to see so much more of this given all of the copyright lawsuits
Recent services
OpenAI launches ChatGPT app for Mac, but delays release of more advanced chat capabilities
Baidu unveils Ernie 4.0 Turbo in a ‘significant upgrade’ to its AI chatbot
Oracle HeatWave database gets host of generative AI features
Oracle unveils generative AI-powered digital assistant for US clinicians
Box broadcasts unlimited queries for Box AI and coming integration with GPT-4o
Motorola and Google Cloud team as much as bring generative AI to Razr family of smartphones
DataStax upgrades its AI development tools with recent productivity features
SingleStore adds Iceberg support and speedier vector search
Take a look at the remaining of SiliconANGLE’s AI and data news
Across the enterprise: Broadcom’s VMware simplicity push
VMware simplifies product portfolio around Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation
Evaluation: Cloud infrastructure innovations and personal AI: theCUBE assesses the longer term of VMware’s cloud ecosystem
Money matters
Amazon’s market cap tops $2T for the primary time
Micron’s stock slumps as fourth-quarter guidance disappoints
Nokia to purchase Infinera for $2.3B to scale up its optical networking business
No-code developer Creatio achieves unicorn status with $200M investment
Clay raises $46M on $500M valuation to reinforce AI-driven sales and marketing platform
Coder secures $35M to expand global footprint and enhance cloud development tools
Rocketlane raises $24M to expand skilled services automation and development efforts
Recent products
Intel shows off first fully integrated optical compute interconnect, designed to scale up AI workloads
In a pair of announcements, Pure Storage looks to assist customers with AI and ransomware
Samsara debuts recent IoT solutions for enhanced operational efficiency
Regulation and policy:
EU files antitrust charges against Microsoft for bundling Teams with Microsoft 365
Take a look at more news on cloud, infrastructure and policy
Cyber beat: PE pressures Rapid7
Money matters
Jana Partners acquires stake in Rapid7, reportedly pushes on the market of company
Vulnerability detection provider PortSwigger raises $112M
Odaseva nabs $54M for its Salesforce data protection platform
Background check firm KarmaCheck raises $45M to fuel development and growth
Permissions management startup AuthZed raises $12M to speed up its strategic expansion
Attacks and fixes
LockBit claims Federal Reserve breach, demands ransom to not release stolen data
Progress Software discloses critical vulnerability in MOVEit file transfer service
Cisco Talos warns of wider security implications following Snowflake breach
Supply chain attack compromises 100,000 web sites via polyfill.io domain takeover
Google intensifies efforts against wide-reaching China-linked influence operation
Ollama addresses distant execution flaw following Wiz discovery
Cloudflare AppSec report finds denial-of-service and bot attacks dominate web threat landscape
BlackBerry reports 40% increase in unique malware samples in first quarter
Arctic Wolf report reveals 70% of organizations targeted by email compromise attacks
CISA joint guidance warns of memory safety vulnerabilities in open-source projects
Take a look at more cybersecurity news
Elsewhere in tech
EU tentatively finds that Apple breached DMA rules as officials launch fresh probe
Supreme Court rules US officials can proceed communicating with social media firms
Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts to get minimum pay, other advantages in $175M settlement
Factory robotics startup Vibrant Machines reels in $126M
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is returning to Australia a free man
Waymo scraps waitlist and makes robotaxis available to everyone in San Francisco
Quantum computing startup Diraq broadcasts additional funding for $22M Series A round
Read more news on emerging tech and blockchain
Comings and goings
Howard Wright, Amazon Web Services’ VP and head of startups (and a former NBA player), joined Nvidia as VP of its startup ecosystem.
Amazon has hired executives from enterprise workflow automation firm Adept, Geekwire reported today, including co-founder and CEO David Luan, former vp of engineering at OpenAI, and co-founders Augustus Odena, Maxwell Nye, Erich Elsen and Kelsey Szot in addition to another employees. Adept reportedly will keep operating as an independent company and Amazon will use a few of Adept’s technology in a non-exclusive license. Luan will report back to Rohit Prasad, a longtime Amazon exec leading a brand new Artificial General Intelligence team.
General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit hired former Amazon and Microsoft executive Marc Whitten as its recent CEO.
HP appointed Medtronic CFO Karen Parkhill as its recent CFO, replacing Marie Myers, who left in January for a similar role at HPE.
What’s next
Nothing of note next week, but things will heat up a bit in July — most notably on July 30 with SiliconANGLE’s own Supercloud 7: Get Ready for the Next Data Platform. Search for more information shortly on theCUBE.net.
Image: SiliconANGLE/Ideogram
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