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:

• Midjourney Leaps Into Hardware World

• Google DeepMind Unveils AlphaProteo, an AI System Designed to Create Proteins

• DOJ Investigates Nvidia's AI Market Power

• OpenAI Surpasses 1 Million Paying Business Users

• And more AI news….

Top Developments

Midjourney

Midjourney's New Adventure: Entering the Hardware Game

The Gist: Midjourney is making a surprising leap into the electronics world, planning to assemble a hardware team in San Francisco to explore new gadget development, though specifics are still under wraps.

Key Details:

• The company officially announced its hardware ambitions on August 28, but didn’t reveal what products they have in mind.

• Ahmad Abbas, a notable hire with a background at Neuralink and involvement in Apple's Vision Pro, joined Midjourney to bolster its hardware efforts.

• Midjourney is famous for its AI image generator that has raked in over $200 million but is also facing lawsuits regarding its training processes and is expanding into video creation.

Deepmind

AlphaProteo: Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI

The Gist: Google DeepMind has unveiled AlphaProteo, an innovative AI system designed to create proteins that can target and bind to specific molecules, promising to transform drug discovery and health research.

Key Details:

• AlphaProteo can design protein binders that are up to 300 times more effective than traditional methods, which may lead to breakthroughs in cancer treatment and diagnostics.

• Unlike its predecessor AlphaFold, which predicts protein structures, AlphaProteo actively designs proteins that can modify biological processes.

• This technology not only impacts medicine but can also enhance imaging techniques and improve agricultural crop resistance.

• DeepMind’s research in AI is expanding, with AlphaProteo seen as a significant step toward more targeted and effective therapies for various health conditions.

Nvidia

DOJ Investigates Nvidia's AI Market Power Amid Antitrust Concerns

The Gist: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip market, probing its contracts and partnerships for potential antitrust violations as regulators increase scrutiny on big tech's influence in AI.

Key Details:

• Nvidia controls over 80% of the AI chip market, prompting DOJ concerns about whether its market power is being used to stifle competition.

• No subpoenas have been issued yet, but the DOJ is requesting internal documents as part of its early-stage investigation.

• The probe is part of a broader government effort to prevent tech monopolies from limiting innovation in the rapidly growing AI industry.

• Legal experts stress that holding market power isn’t illegal, but the way companies use that power is under scrutiny.

Quick Gist

Mark Cuban praised Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok for providing an "accurate" response regarding Vice President Kamala Harris's immigration stance, highlighting its reliability over other AI models (Read More).

OpenAI is reportedly considering significantly raising its premium ChatGPT subscription fees to possibly $2,000—aimed at addressing financial challenges and funding the development of advanced AI models—while risking reduced user demand and diverging from its mission to benefit all of humanity (Read More).

HyperWrite has launched Reflection 70B, an innovative open-source large language model that boasts self-correction capabilities and surpasses competitors in benchmark tests, with plans for an even larger model, Reflection 405B, to follow soon (Read More).

OpenAI has surpassed 1 million paying business users for its enterprise services, reflecting significant growth in the generative AI market since launching ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Team (Read More).

Microsoft has released the August 2024 update for Visual Studio Code (version 1.93), introducing key enhancements like improved GitHub Copilot features, IntelliSense on the web version, and support for Django unit tests (Read More).

X has agreed to halt AI training on EU users' data and delete previously collected data, following a DPC investigation, while its Grok chatbot is set for a significant upgrade with the launch of the xAI supercomputer (Read More).

THAT’S IT FOR TODAY!