Empires of the Cloud: Azure's Ascension

Microsoft?is still in the game. When everyone thought the company was losing its grip on the cloud, it got busy brewing something completely?different.?

The recent acquisition of?Fungible, a startup that manufactures data processing units or DPUs, was a move in that direction – away from traditional data centres, accelerating networking and storage performance in data centres with high-efficiency, and low-power DPUs.?

On January 9, Microsoft and Fungible?confirmed?the acquisition, which has been in the works since December 2022. Microsoft, reportedly, closed the deal at $190 million. The purchase hints at Microsoft's intent to strengthen Azure, alongside its plans to integrate OpenAI's APIs into its customer and enterprise line of products and services in a big way.?

Azure's corporate vice president?Girish Bablani?said that the acquisition would help the company enable high-performance, disaggregated, and scaled-out data centre infrastructure with reliability and security. He said it is committed to long-term differentiated investments in its data centre infrastructure, enhancing its technology and offerings. This includes offloading, improving latency, increasing data centre server density, optimising energy efficiency, and reducing costs.?

But Microsoft is not alone. In December 2022, at Amazon's re:Invent, AWS also unveiled version 5 of?Nitro cards, which offer a DPU-like functionality. On the other hand, Google Cloud is betting on?Cloud TPU, which is deployed within its data centres to power AI products like Translate, Photos, Search, Assistant, and Gmail.?

Read the full story here.

OpenAI & MicrosoftA Match Made in Tech Heaven

From betting on?OpenAI?early on to pouring in an additional?$10 billion for a 49% stake and +75% profit, Microsoft has been the talk of the town. With products like?GitHub Copilot,?Microsoft Designer, and integrating?ChatGPT?into Bing, the company has extracted the most out of its investment in OpenAI. At the same time, they have been burning millions of dollars on training and inference for OpenAI's experiments.?

While most of its tools have found their way to becoming services on Microsoft Azure, the duo has also worked closely to create the?Azure supercomputer cluster.?With the partnership bringing many of its primary goals to life and more to come in the future, Microsoft's love for OpenAI is getting stronger with each passing day. Meanwhile, one question remains on everyone's mind: Will Microsoft acquire OpenAI??

Find out more about their everlasting relationship?here.

AIM VIDEO

India's Biggest ML Conference

Developers conferences are a symphony of code and creativity, a gathering of the tribe of the initiated, the ones who speak the language of machines. They are a place to share knowledge and inspiration, to learn new skills and techniques, to discover the latest tools and technologies, and to connect with like-minded individuals.?

So, join us on January 19-20th in Bengaluru at?Machine Learning Developers Conference (MLDS)?as we celebrate the power of the human mind and the magic of technology, a reminder that we are all part of something greater, something that has the potential to change the world.

3NM CHIPS

Apple Innovates, Android Disrupts

When it comes to innovating, Apple seems?ahead of most of the players?in the market. But that comes with a price. After failed attempts to reduce the price, Apple eventually reversed course and accepted the price increase proposed by its supplier TSMC to manufacture 3nm chips for A17 bionic and M2 Pro, which is?already in motion.?

On the other hand, Android is playing the long game where it plans to start experimenting with 3nm chips by 2024, anticipating a drop in the price and more demand as the effect of the recession stabilises in the near future. Read more?here.