Artificial Intelligence– Regulatory debate pt. IV

Europe fares better than I expected. Unless I missed something, the preliminary deal on how to regulate AI in the EU looks far more realistic and business-friendly than I had previously feared especially given how similar the original pronouncements of the EU and the CCP were. The EU has reached a deal on AI Regulation which will now need to...

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AMD & The AI Ecosystem– The wrong tree

Jensen will not be losing much sleep yet. AMD has unveiled a fearsome competitor to Nvidia’s H100 and H200 series but does not seem to have realised that the way to beat Nvidia is to create a software development platform that is better than CUDA. Fortunately for AMD and the rest of the AI-training chip wannabes, the emerging AI ecosystems...

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AI Ecosystem– Google Gemini

Google gets its act together. Google has stopped panicking (see here) and launched a new large language model (LLM) which it claims takes multimodality to a new level (true) and greatly improves the model’s ability to reason (dubious). Most importantly, Google has productised Gemini meaning that there are different versions of it which are already being targeted at users, customers...

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AI Ecosystem– AI Alliance

Meta is the senior partner. Meta is moving to cement its grip on the emerging AI ecosystem by partnering with a range of “have-not” AI companies to increase support of open-source where its foundation model is the industry standard. Meta is leading the AI Alliance (see here) which includes IBM and around 50 other AI companies, universities and tech companies...

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Tech Newsround – Quantum & Nvidia

IBM lays out its wares & Nvidia goes for Japan IBM & Quantum computing – Still no Pong. Quantum computing is lining up to be the replacement for silicon when the rules of physics finally make it obsolete, but even with advances from IBM, there is still a very long road to travel. IBM will publish a series of papers...

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AI Ecosystem – Starter’s Orders

The race has just begun The contenders are already jostling for position when it comes to ownership of the emerging AI Ecosystem where OpenAI is in the lead, but its internal foibles have given everyone else and especially Meta a leg up. The smartphone ecosystem is already well established where Apple, Google and Tencent are the clear winners, but the...

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Qualcomm vs. Apple – Black Magic pt. II

Apple fails to graduate from Hogwarts. It looks like Apple is giving up on its attempts to design an in-house 5G modem which is a big benefit to Qualcomm not for modem sales but because Apple will not be able to start another fight over royalty rates when its current contract expires in 2026. If Apple is unable to reopen...

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Alibaba – Nadir of fortunes.

Alibaba plumbs the depths. Alibaba has lost its crown as the biggest e-commerce company in China to PinDuoDuo, which combined with a botched restructuring and lacklustre results leads one to think that Jack Ma needs to be much more involved rather than operating from the shadows. PinDuoDuo reported stellar results this week with revenues almost doubling which sent the US-listed...

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Amazon AWS re:Invent – Show stolen.

I would like to pay tribute to Charlie Munger who passed away last night. His acerbic wit and common sense had a profound impact on the way I analyse companies, themes and investments. He will be missed. Jensen steals the show. AWS is holding its annual re:Invent conference where its own silicon chips played second fiddle to Nvidia’s in just...

OpenAI – Reality Test.

The valuation event will speak volumes. Although OpenAI is probably worth more now than it was 2 weeks ago, the share sale is unlikely to go through at $86bn and will serve as a measure of just how strong the AI-everything narrative remains after the Open AI earthquake. Despite the hot mess that became Open AI a few weeks ago,...

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