The bottomless pit of funding for all things artificial intelligence remains… bottomless.
Case in point: This week Databricks raised more money than God. That’s going to be one monster IPO next year (maybe) if the economy holds up.
Meanwhile, Perplexity raised $500 million for its AI search and immediately bought AI startup Carbon. And continuing the AI funding bubble boom, Sandbox AQ raised $300 million. But the business is real, as AI is expected to drive enterprise tech upside next year.
The bubble boom in AI models is continuing too, as Google, OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta and others all released new models and ways to use and access them. Salesforce also beefed up its just recently introduced AI agent platform Agentforce. But OpenAI faces legal headwinds as Elon Musk and Meta both opposed its plans to create a for-profit company.
Neobank Chime filed confidentially for an initial public offering next year, following ServiceTitan’s IPO last week. Is a thawing in the works this winter?
Dave Vellante and David Floyer have a plan to revive Intel’s chip foundry business, but it’s going to take a lot of cooperation by some powerful companies and the government.
Cyber consolidation keeps chugging along, as Arctic Wolf bought BlackBerry’s Cylance unit and Cisco bought SnapAttack.
Elsewhere in technology, TikTok’s bid to survive in the U.S. will go to the Supreme Court next month. Your guess as to what the Supremes will do is as good as mine.
You can hear more about this and other news on John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast theCUBE Pod out today on YouTube. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive Breaking Analysis this weekend.
Here’s the big enterprise and emerging technology news this week from SiliconANGLE and beyond:
AI and data: Databricks sets a VC funding record
Money matters
Databricks raising mammoth $10B funding round at $62B valuation
Perplexity AI gets $500M in funding and immediately spends some of it to buy RAG startup Carbon
SandboxAQ raises $300M at $5.6B valuation to develop AI and quantum technology
Meta Platforms joins forces with Elon Musk to try to block OpenAI’s for-profit transition
AI lending technology firm Zest AI announces $200M growth investment from Insight Partners
AI-powered accounting startup Basis raises $34M in funding
AI world model startup Decart reels in $32M
AI-powered 3D modeling startup Backflip closes $30M round
Nuon raises $16.5M to transform software-as-a-service deployment
Starboard Systems gets $5.5M funding to automate logistics and quotes for freight forwarders
AI copilot for game devs Coplay raises $1.2M
New services
Google’s very busy end of 2024:
Google debuts reasoning-optimized Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental model
Google debuts Veo 2 video generator, upgraded Imagen 3 with Whisk remix tool
Google expands Code Assist with support for third-party data sources
Nvidia debuts NeMo Retriever microservices for multilingual generative AI
Nvidia launches Jetson Orin Nano Super, a powerful AI brain for robotics and edge
And a deeper look by Zeus Kerravala: The robots are coming! And Nvidia is going to power them with a revamped Jetson and lower price
Among the many new developments from OpenAI’s 12 straight days of product announcements:
OpenAI details o3 reasoning model with record-breaking benchmark scores
OpenAI upgrades ChatGPT’s search engine with speed, usability improvements
OpenAI’s makes the full version of its o1 reasoning model available, but only to some developers
OpenAI goes retro, making ChatGPT available over the phone
Patronus AI releases Glider: a small, high-performance AI evaluator model for other models
Researchers open-source Genesis simulation platform for training robots
Instagram to add video editing features powered by Meta’s Movie Gen AI model
Writer launches Palmyra Creative to address creativity gaps in existing AI models
Overture makes its open-source transportation dataset generally available
Sahara AI’s new Data Services Platform allows anyone to earn money by creating datasets for AI
Tray.ai unleashes low-code platform for building AI agents
Nexla leverages Nvidia NIM for faster, cost-efficient generative AI workflows
Jasper introduces a studio for no-code AI app development and Slack integration
Florida rolls out AI-driven emergency warning system
Analysis
Causal AI: The next frontier in transparent and accountable AI systems
Controversy
UK coalition of creatives rejects government plan on AI copyright exemption
There’s even more AI and big data news on SiliconANGLE
Around the enterprise: How to revive Intel’s foundry business
Breaking Analysis: A bold plan to spin out and revive Intel’s foundry business
PitchBook: Enterprise tech momentum in 2025 will be fueled by AI growth and crypto revival
PitchBook: Private equity funding faces first decline in five years amid maturity pressures
“Neobank” Chime filed for an IPO, likely next year.
Synopsys’ bid for Ansys faces in-depth probe in UK unless remedies quell antitrust concerns
AMD backs $333M funding round for cloud infrastructure provider Vultr
Grammarly acquires Coda, takes on co-founder Mehrotra as new CEO
Automated accounting software startup Aiwyn raises $113M
Sonar acquires open-source security specialist Tidelift
Accenture’s stock moves higher as generative AI demand powers strong earnings beat
Shares of Micron tumble on weak outlook for memory chips
We have more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps
Cyber beat: Arctic Wolf on the hunt
Money matters
Arctic Wolf acquires BlackBerry’s Cylance endpoint security unit for $160M+
Cisco to acquire threat detection and defense company SnapAttack
Ireland’s privacy regulator fines Meta €251M over 2018 cyberattack
Keepit keeps raising money, closing on $50M in its latest funding round
Bureau secures $30M to expand risk intelligence platform and global reach
OPSWAT acquires Fend to enhance industrial cybersecurity with data diode technology
BlackBerry reports strong earnings, topping expectations
Attack & response
Report: US investigating China’s TP-Link and could ban its routers next year
Database belonging to Builder.ai found exposing 1.29TB and 3M+ records
1.4M records stolen in Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center ransomware attack
Rhode Island’s RIBridges system breached in cyberattack targeting personal data
CISA releases draft updates to National Cyber Incident Response for public comment
SlashNext report warns of eightfold rise in credential phishing as AI drives sophistication
Cofense report warns of credential-harvesting attacks that spoof Proofpoint, Mimecast and Virtru
Zimperium warns of growing threat of sophisticated mobile phishing attacks targeting executives
Elsewhere in tech: TikTok tick-tock
Countdown to TikTok’s fate:
TikTok CEO meets with Trump as company hopes Supreme Court will block upcoming ban and Supreme Court to hear arguments on looming TikTok ban and EU opens probe into TikTok over possible Russian interference in Romanian election
Smart ring startup Oura nabs $200M at $5.2B valuation
Apple reportedly developing giant foldable iPad for 2028 launch
Precision Neuroscience raises $102M to advance AI-powered brain implant
Engineered Arts restructures in US and secures $10M to scale up humanoid robots
And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy
Comings and goings
AWS’ longtime lead blogger and all-around evangelist Jeff Barr is leaving that job — but not AWS. His last post says he will “invest more time focused on learning and using fewer things, building cool stuff, and creating fresh, developer-focused content as I do so.”
Google appointed Preeti Lobana, who was VP of advertising technology, as its new India chief.
Application security firm Black Duck Software announced the appointment of Ishpreet Singh as chief information officer and Bruce Jenkins as chief information security officer.
DevOps automation firm DuploCloud appointed Matt Amundson chief marketing officer and Kelly DeHart chief revenue officer.
What’s next
Not much except the holidays! And then…
Jan. 7-10, 2025: CES, Las Vegas
Image: SiliconANGLE/Microsoft Image Creator
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