AMD's CUDA Challenge

The software wager has been going on at AMD for some time now. And it is looking to take it a notch higher by betting on Nod.ai , a San Francisco-based open-source AI software firm.

This, however, is not the first time. In August, the company announced its acquisition of Mipsology , a French AI startup, which has also been a long-standing AMD partner, developing AI software for the chipmaker.?

RN, NVIDIA is slaying the hardware market only because of its CUDA prowess, and all of its rivals – AMD, Intel, etc. – are now mimicking the success of its software architecture for running AI workloads on GPUs. A majority are going the open-source route, unlike CUDA, which remains restricted to NVIDIA’s GPUs.?

AMD’s bet on Nod.ai is clearly in that direction. “The acquisition of Nod.ai is expected to significantly enhance our ability to provide AI customers with open software that allows them to easily deploy highly performant AI models tuned for AMD hardware,” said Vamsi Boppana , senior vice president, AI Group at AMD.?

Founded in 2013 by Anush Elangovan and Harsh Menon , Nod.ai had raised $20 million in its last funding. According to reports , the AI software company might just be purchased by AMD, which is currently valued at $36.5 million.?

Elangovan, one of the co-founders at Nod.ai , has worked on the first Google ARM Chromebook and has led the foundation of the ChromeOS team at Google. Menon, the CTO of Nod.ai , on the other hand, was an early employee at Zee.Aero , has an MS in Aerospace Engineering and is said to have worked on flying cars .

Read the full story here .

Sridhar Vembu AI-Exposed

Is AI a bubble? Zoho chief Sridhar Vembu thinks so.?

In an exclusive interview with AIM, Vembu said there is definitely an AI bubble, comparing it with the crypto and SaaS bubbles, which are now declining. He said that the initial excitement surrounding it has come down in the past few months.?

“There are still challenges from a business point of view,” he added, pointing at ‘hallucinations’ and talking about other limitations of AI neural networks on how they struggle to memorise and recollect past conversations. “We have to be cautious. I don’t want to overhype or oversell it, but we have invested in the technology so that all the capabilities are realised and the problems are kept at the least,” said Vembu.?

Read the complete interview here.?

Loom-ing Acquisition?

Australian software giant Atlassian recently announced its plans to acquire video messaging platform Loom for nearly $975 million to make its collaboration software even better. With this acquisition, Atlassian’s tools like Jira and Confluence will now have video messaging features, alongside offering its services to Loom’s existing 25 million user base.?

More than anything, this move makes Atlassian more competitive and gives its customers a better experience, as they can access a wider range of communication tools all in one place. However, making this work well will be a challenge for Atlassian, as they need to smoothly merge Loom's technology with their own and make sure it benefits their customers.

Learn more about the Atlassian-Loom acquisition here .?

Generative AI in Bollywood

Taking a cue from Hollywood, Indian actor Anil Kapoor recently safeguarded his digital persona. The Delhi High Court passed a verdict protecting his 'personality rights' and acknowledging the misuse of AI tools to create deepfakes and explicit videos.?

Bollywood studios are now welcoming the ethical use of generative AI.?

At Cypher 2023 , Amrit Thomas , the chief data officer at Zee Entertainment , said that Zee is adopting generative AI rapidly to create innovative and ethically sound content, aiming to enhance the audience experience. “We are training our models on our own IP," he said, clarifying that Zee is being careful about only using content that belongs to them, staying within their own creative boundaries.?

Check out Bollywood's cautionary tale with generative AI here .?