Nvidia is out in front, Apple is Darwinian, Monopoly or Strategy?

🤖 Innova8AI News

🏁 Nvidia Heating Up the AI Chip Race

Nvidia unveils the Blackwell B200 GPU, touted as the 'world's most powerful chip' for AI. It offers up to 20 petaflops of FP4 performance and enables trillion-parameter AI model training with its GB200 'superchip' that combines two B200 GPUs and a Grace CPU.

In the weeds:

• B200 GPU offers up to 20 petaflops of FP4 horsepower

• GB200 combines two B200 GPUs and a Grace CPU on one board

• Claims 30x performance boost for large language model inference over H100

• Up to 25x more efficient than H100 for LLM workloads

• Enables training trillion-parameter models with fewer GPUs and less power

• New networking switch enables scaling to thousands of GPUs

• Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle to offer GB200 systems in cloud

• Exascale DGX Superpod with 11.5 exaflops of FP4 compute

The impact:  Nvidia's new Blackwell B200 GPU and GB200 "superchip" are game-changing additions to the AI hardware landscape. They promise massive performance gains and efficiency improvements that could dramatically reduce the costs of developing and deploying cutting-edge large language models and other AI applications. Businesses should evaluate upgrading to this hardware to stay competitive, especially via cloud providers committed to offering these systems. The scaling capabilities enabled by the interconnected GPU networking may also unlock entirely new AI projects at unprecedented scales across industries.

💻 Apple Making Moves?

Apple has acquired Canadian AI startup Darwin AI, though no official announcement was made. The acquisition provides Apple with technology to make AI models more compact and efficient.

In the weeds:

• Evidence includes Darwin AI employees joining Apple's AI division, investors confirming exit, and Darwin's website/social media going offline

• Darwin AI specialized in making AI models smaller and faster, with applications like visual inspection during manufacturing

• Apple aims to leverage Darwin's tech for upcoming AI features expected in iOS 18 release later this year

• The acquisition will help Apple play catch-up in the AI race, as it has fallen behind competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft in AI/language model development

• Apple is reportedly working on its large language model called "Apple GPT," powered by the Ajax framework

• Tim Cook has hinted at generative AI capabilities coming to iOS 18, with potential AI enhancements to Siri

The impact:  With Darwin AI's technology to optimize AI models, Apple may offer more powerful and efficient on-device AI capabilities for enterprise use cases. This could allow businesses to leverage advanced AI/language models like "Apple GPT" directly” on Apple devices and services without major cloud connectivity requirements. Developers may also get new AI tooling from Apple leveraging the Darwin tech, enabling the creation of smarter business apps and software across Apple's ecosystem. 

🧐 Monopoly Much: Microsoft Hires InflectionAI Execs

In a major move to bolster its consumer AI efforts, Microsoft has hired the co-founders of high-profile AI startup Inflection AI - Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan - to lead a new division called Microsoft AI. Suleyman will run the consumer AI unit reporting to CEO Satya Nadella, while Simonyan joins as a chief scientist, pivoting Inflection AI's focus to an "AI studio" business building custom models for customers.

In the weeds:

• Suleyman will run Microsoft's newly formed consumer AI division called Microsoft AI, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella

• Simonyan is joining as a chief scientist in the Microsoft AI group

• This comes after Microsoft led a $1.3 billion funding round in Inflection AI less than a year ago

• Inflection AI will now shift focus to an "AI studio" business building custom generative AI models for customers

• The hires are part of Microsoft's aggressive push to attract top AI talent and innovate in consumer AI products/services

• Inflection AI's large language model Inflection-2.5 will be hosted on Microsoft Azure initially

The impact: This deal represents a major coup for Microsoft in the escalating AI talent wars, bringing aboard pioneers like the DeepMind co-founder to drive its consumer AI agenda. It signals Microsoft's determination to be a dominant force in generative AI applications and services for consumers, potentially reshaping dynamics in the tech giants' AI race. Under this new leadership, the industry will closely watch Microsoft's next moves and product releases.

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