Welcome to Get The Gist, where every weekday we share an easy-to-read summary of the latest and greatest developments in AI—news, innovations, and trends—all delivered in under 5 minutes! ⏱

In today’s edition:

• Google DeepMind Revolutionizes Chip Design with AlphaChip

• Apple Steers Clear of OpenAI’s Funding Round

• Amazon's AI Deal With Anthropic Gets Green Light in the UK

• Microsoft to Roll Out a Redesigned & Faster "Copilot v2"

• And more AI news….

Top Developments

DeepMind

Google DeepMind Revolutionizes Chip Design with AlphaChip

The Gist: Google DeepMind's new AI tool, AlphaChip, is transforming the way we design chips, speeding up the process from months to just hours, while also boosting performance and efficiency for tech giants like Google and MediaTek.

Key Details:

• AlphaChip uses advanced AI techniques to optimize chip layouts, reducing the time taken for design drastically while improving power efficiency by 67% for its TPU chips.

• It leverages a game-like reinforcement learning approach, learning from each design iteration to refine its layouts based on specific performance criteria like wire length and congestion.

• The tool has been adopted beyond Google, with companies like MediaTek utilizing it to enhance their 5G processors, marking a shift towards broader AI integration in the semiconductor industry.

• Future ambitions for AlphaChip include fully automating the entire chip design cycle, aligning with energy-efficient technology goals and easing the workload for engineers.

Apple

Apple Steers Clear of OpenAI’s Funding Round

The Gist: Apple has backed out of discussions to invest in OpenAI's next funding round, which could potentially value the AI company at a whopping $150 billion and raise up to $6.5 billion from various investors.

Key Details:

• Microsoft is set to invest an additional $1 billion in OpenAI, bringing its total to $14 billion.

• Nvidia is considering investing around $100 million in the company.

• The funding round could make OpenAI the highest-valued private tech company ever.

• Despite high revenue projections, OpenAI expects to incur a loss of $5 billion this year due to operational costs.

Anthropic

Amazon's AI Deal With Anthropic Gets Green Light in the UK

The Gist: Amazon's $4 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic has been approved by the UK's competition authority, which found no need for a deeper investigation. This decision could enhance Amazon's AI developments without delays from regulatory scrutiny.

Key Details:

• The UK Competition and Markets Authority determined that Anthropic's revenue didn't meet the threshold for an in-depth merger investigation.

• Amazon's investment aims to boost competition in the generative AI space, as highlighted by the company's positive reaction to the approval.

• While the UK deal is cleared, similar partnerships around the globe, like Microsoft’s with Inflection AI, are still under review.

• Anthropic is currently facing a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by three authors regarding the use of their works.

Quick Gist

Microsoft is rolling out a redesigned and faster "Copilot v2" chatbot in India and Brazil, aiming to enhance competition with ChatGPT through improved performance and a new user interface (Read More).

China is advising AI startups to avoid purchasing NVIDIA chips to lessen reliance on US technology amid rising tensions and export restrictions (Read More).

OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that the current o1-preview model is "deeply flawed" but promised significant improvements with the upcoming o1 release (Read More).

OpenAI reported $300 million in monthly revenue as of August 2023, projecting annual sales of $3.7 billion but expecting to incur losses of approximately $5 billion this year amid rising operational costs (Read More).

OpenAI plans to raise the price of its ChatGPT Plus subscription from $20 to $44 a month over the next five years, with a $2 increase expected by the end of 2024 (Read More).

Google Lens has launched a new "Ask with Video" feature powered by Gemini AI, allowing users to troubleshoot gadgets by asking questions directly through video on Android and iOS devices (Read More).

ByteDance plans to develop a new AI model using Huawei's Ascend 910B chips due to U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips, despite challenges in training capabilities and public denials of such plans (Read More).

Raspberry Pi launched an AI Camera powered by Sony's IMX500 sensor for $70, facilitating edge AI solutions without the need for additional hardware components (Read More).

THAT’S IT FOR TODAY!