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The Year That Big Tech Joined Forces With AI Startups

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The Year That Big Tech Joined Forces With AI Startups

Throughout the year, a new wave of artificial intelligence startups has upended Silicon Valley and the larger business community, but one thing has remained constant: Big Tech continues to hold sway.

Following Microsoft Corp.’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI in January, other tech behemoths hurried to collaborate with top AI startups via funding and cloud computing agreements. At a $4.5 billion valuation, Salesforce Inc. spearheaded a round in Hugging Face. Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. made billion-dollar investments in Anthropic, an OpenAI rival. And it appeared that Nvidia Corp. supported nearly all notable AI startups.

Ultimately, this means that a large number of the most promising AI startups now rely significantly on the traditional tech industry heavyweights for infrastructure and funding. Regulators are beginning to take notice of that dynamic.

Competition authorities in the US and the UK are once again scrutinizing Microsoft’s collaboration with OpenAI. The Biden administration has assigned the US Federal Trade Commission the responsibility of advancing “a fair, open, and competitive AI ecosystem.” Regarding the question of whether or not large cloud computing contracts are anti-competitive, the agency has previously asked for public input.

“What regulators might be concerned about is that the story of Big Tech’s strategic investment in AI startups could have the potential to become the story of Big Tech’s AI monopoly,” stated Ngor Luong, a senior research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies who specializes in AI investment trends.

These agreements with Big Tech can be an important lifeline for AI companies. The technology that powers AI chatbots like ChatGPT, large language models, is very expensive and computationally demanding to build. Big tech companies belong to the small group of companies that have the resources and infrastructure to back these initiatives.

These acquisitions can help Big Tech companies maintain control over a competitive and quickly changing market, as some were taken aback by the tremendous success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT a year ago. Tech behemoths can increase demand for their goods through these alliances, whether it’s Nvidia’s chips or Microsoft, Google, and Amazon’s cloud computing services.

In a blog post this month, Nvidia said it has made “more than two dozen investments” this year. “These partnerships stimulate joint innovation, enhance the NVIDIA platform and expand the ecosystem,” the company said.

Apart from OpenAI, Microsoft has also made investments in billion-dollar AI startups like Adept and Inflection AI. However, these transactions pale in comparison to the $13 billion that Microsoft has already committed to the ChatGPT company.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was briefly fired in November, a move that highlighted Microsoft’s special relationship with the startup. Along with other investors, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was a major factor in getting the board to change its mind. Microsoft had previously declared that it would bring on Altman and his OpenAI colleagues to establish a new Microsoft AI division.

Microsoft clarified that it does not hold a conventional stake in OpenAI in response to regulators’ concerns. The company stated last week that “it is important to note that Microsoft does not own any portion of OpenAI and is simply entitled to a share of profit distributions.”

While Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon have all been actively supporting AI startups this year, Apple Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. have been largely absent from these kinds of transactions.

Apple Inc. launched an internal chatbot known as “Apple GPT” and developed its own large language model known as Ajax. In the meantime, Meta has partnered with Microsoft and Amazon in addition to having an open source large language model.

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Apple’s own 5G modem-equipped iPhone SE 4 is “confirmed” to launch in March

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Tom O’Malley, an analyst at Barclays, recently visited Asia with his colleagues to speak with suppliers and makers of electronics. The analysts said they had “confirmed” that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is scheduled to launch near the end of the first quarter next year in a research note they released this week that outlines the main conclusions from the trip. That timeline implies that the next iPhone SE will be unveiled in March, similar to when the present model was unveiled in 2022, in keeping with earlier rumors.

The rumored features of the fourth-generation iPhone SE include a 6.1-inch OLED display, Face ID, a newer A-series chip, a USB-C port, a single 48-megapixel rear camera, 8GB of RAM to enable Apple Intelligence support, and the previously mentioned Apple-designed 5G modem. The SE is anticipated to have a similar design to the base iPhone 14.

Since 2018, Apple is said to have been developing its own 5G modem for iPhones, a move that will let it lessen and eventually do away with its reliance on Qualcomm. With Qualcomm’s 5G modem supply arrangement for iPhone launches extended through 2026 earlier this year, Apple still has plenty of time to finish switching to its own modem. In addition to the fourth-generation iPhone SE, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo earlier stated that the so-called “iPhone 17 Air” would come with a 5G modem that was created by Apple.

Whether Apple’s initial 5G modem would offer any advantages to consumers over Qualcomm’s modems, such quicker speeds, is uncertain.

Qualcomm was sued by Apple in 2017 for anticompetitive behavior and $1 billion in unpaid royalties. In 2019, Apple purchased the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business after the two firms reached a settlement in the dispute. Apple was able to support its development by acquiring a portfolio of patents relating to cellular technology. It appears that we will eventually be able to enjoy the results of our effort in four more months.

On March 8, 2022, Apple made the announcement of the third-generation iPhone SE online. With antiquated features like a Touch ID button, a Lightning port, and large bezels surrounding the screen, the handset resembles the iPhone 8. The iPhone SE presently retails for $429 in the United States, but the new model may see a price increase of at least a little.

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Google is said to be discontinuing the Pixel Tablet 2 and may be leaving the market once more

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Google terminated the development of the Pixel Tablet 3 yesterday, according to Android Headlines, even before a second-generation model was announced. The second-generation Pixel Tablet has actually been canceled, according to the report. This means that the gadget that was released last year will likely be a one-off, and Google is abandoning the tablet market for the second time in just over five years.

If accurate, the report indicates that Google has determined that it is not worth investing more money in a follow-up because of the dismal sales of the Pixel Tablet. Rumors of a keyboard accessory and more functionality for the now-defunct project surfaced as recently as last week.

It’s important to keep in mind that Google’s Nest subsidiary may abandon its plans for large-screen products in favor of developing technologies like the Nest Hub and Hub Max rather than standalone tablets.

Google has always had difficulty making a significant impact in the tablet market and creating a competitor that can match Apple’s iPad in terms of sales and general performance, not helped in the least by its inconsistent approach. Even though the hardware was good, it never really fought back after getting off to a promising start with the Nexus 7 eons ago. Another problem that has hampered Google’s efforts is that Android significantly trails iPadOS in terms of the quantity of third-party apps that are tablet-optimized.

After the Pixel Slate received tremendously unfavorable reviews, the firm first declared that it was finished producing tablets in 2019. Two tablets that were still in development at the time were discarded.

By 2022, however, Google had altered its mind and declared that a tablet was being developed by its Pixel hardware team. The $499 Pixel Tablet was the final version of the gadget, which came with a speaker dock that the tablet could magnetically connect to. (Google would subsequently charge $399 for the tablet alone.)

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Windows 11 PCs with Arm Processors now have an Official ISO for Clean Installations

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Power users occasionally prefer to start over when they acquire a new computer, so they follow the pro-gamers’ advice and reinstall Windows using a brand-new ISO image that comes straight from Microsoft and is free of bloatware and needlessly complex “driver management programs.” Up until recently, the new Snapdragon laptops’ more specialized version of Windows 11 didn’t support that.

The Windows 11 build on these new laptops is unusual because of the Arm64-based hardware, which differs from the typical x86 and x64 innards found in most laptops and desktops. Microsoft has finally released a disk image (or ISO file) for these devices after several months of waiting. To perform a direct reinstallation or make a bootable flash drive for a different device, you may now download it straight from Microsoft’s website. It is identical to the installation media utility that is currently available.

Be aware that there may be some glitches if you use this method for a fresh install. Compared to previous designs, the Snapdragon X system-on-a-chip has a lot fewer hardware variables, but because it’s so new, Windows Update might not include all the necessary components. You may need to use an Ethernet connection or the old-fashioned sneakernet to manually load drivers from another computer. You may also need to do some Googling to locate all the files you require for that.

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