GenAI Revenue Soars Like Never Before

Astounding revenue surges are like finding a winning lottery ticket in an old black leather jacket. This week, NVIDIA announced its quarterly revenue for FY25 Q1, reporting a record-breaking 629% year-over-year increase, with revenue up 261.11% ($26 billion), fueled by advancements in generative AI.

There is no stopping NVIDIA. Its data centre revenue alone was $22.6 billion – a record-breaker again – up 23% sequentially and 427% YoY, driven by continued strong demand for the NVIDIA Hopper GPU computing platform across data centres, cloud providers, and enterprise customers.?

While Google, Microsoft, AWS, Apple, and Meta, alongside Intel and AMD, are investing heavily in developing custom chips to run AI workloads, experts believe they will never be able to catch up with NVIDIA, as it controls a whopping 95% of the AI chip market.?

In the earnings call, Huang said that the company will build a new chip every year. “I can announce that after Blackwell, there’s another chip. We’re on a one-year rhythm,” he added, saying that the Blackwell platform is in full production and forms the foundation for trillion-parameter scale generative AI.

NVIDIA’s moat leads us to its ‘complex product design and manufacturing' and continuous innovation. When the competitors attempt to catch up on one product, the company smoothly advances to the next, ensuring it maintains a technological and competitive edge.?

Not just NVIDIA, cloud companies have also reported a jump in revenue, thanks to generative AI. In the recent quarter, Microsoft Azure's cloud revenue was $26.7 billion, up 23% YoY. Google Cloud reported $9.6 billion, up 28.43% YoY. On the other hand, AWS reported a revenue of $25.04 billion in Q1 2024, up 13% from the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Fuels Big Tech Revenue Growth?

Microsoft's FY24 Q1 revenue increased 17% to $61.9 billion, driven by strong cloud and generative AI product performance. ?

Meanwhile, Alphabet saw a 15% revenue increase to $80.5 billion, powered by strong performance in Search, YouTube, and cloud. Significant strides in generative AI led to a promising Gemini era.

Amazon, on the other hand, recorded a 13% increase in FY 24 Q1, touching $143.3 billion, with the AWS segment up 17%. This reflects strong growth across all business areas and a significant boost from infrastructure modernisation and generative AI capabilities.

Meanwhile, Meta's Q1 2024 earnings surged with a 27% revenue increase to $36.46 billion and a dramatic 117% rise in net income, driven by robust growth in generative AI and metaverse initiatives.

Data & Analytics Firms Celebrate??

Snowflake recently announced quarterly revenue of $790 million, up 34% year over year after it focused on generative AI. In contrast, the total revenue in Q1 2021 was $228.9 million.

On the other hand, in 2024, Databricks reached a revenue run rate of $1.9 billion, with a year-over-year growth rate of 26.67%. The company reported $1.6 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2024, representing over 50% YoY growth.

Databricks' India arm also recorded an 80% annualised growth over the past two fiscal years, from February 1, 2022, to January 31, 2024. The company attributes this surge to the rising demand for data and AI capabilities among Indian enterprises.?

IT Service Providers Rejoice?

In its latest quarter, Accenture reported a revenue of $15.8 billion and a record $21.6 billion in new bookings, showcasing strong generative AI growth and strategic investments. Over the last two quarters, the company has accumulated $1.05 billion in generative AI projects.

Genpact, on the other hand, reported a 4% increase in Q1 2024 revenues to $1.13 billion, with significant execution improvements in data, generative AI, and digital operations.

Meanwhile, TCS reported GenAI deals worth $900 million in Q4 FY24. Other Indian IT firms—Wipro, Infosys, LTIMindtree, and HCLTech—are still figuring it out with mixed GenAI emotions.?

Industry projections: As per a forthcoming AIM Research report, the total market for generative AI is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.22% from 2023 to 2033. Furthermore, companies in the services sector are anticipated to experience a slightly higher CAGR of 45%, indicating a faster expansion compared to the overall market.?

Top Stories of the Week >>?

RAG with Microsoft Copilot

At Microsoft Build 2024, the tech giant announced several new tools and advancements, most notably retrieval augmented generation, or RAG,? incorporation in the Copilot Library, making it easier to use on-device data for your applications. It provides the right tools to build a vector store within the platform and enables semantic search, similar to Recall. Read more here.?

Society Separates Those Good at Maths from Those That are Not, But AI Doesn’t

In an episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, Sam Altman recalled how calculators were perceived in his maths classes. “We never got to use calculators,” he said, adding that conversely, you had to be proficient with calculators in real life to excel later. Read the full story here.?

Generative AI: How to Move from Promises to Production

Generative AI has redefined business operations and workplace dynamics, and impacted daily lives, heralding a new era akin to the Industrial Revolution. Axtria has seamlessly integrated data analytics into its offerings from the outset, adeptly extracting hidden insights—GenAI's forte.?

However, for companies less familiar with data-centric practices, the pathway into the GenAI landscape begins with embracing four essential principles applicable across all sectors. Know more here.?

People & Tech >>?

This Akash Ambani-Backed Startup is Building Multilingual LLMs for India

TWO, a startup backed by Reliance Jio, recently launched a family of models called SUTRA. These cost-efficient, multilingual generative AI models excel in 50+ languages, offering speech, search, and visual processing capabilities.?

The startup raised a $20M seed fund in February 2022 from Jio Platforms and South Korean internet conglomerate Naver. “Jio has been one of our key partners for a long time and has invested in us from the very beginning,” said Pranav Mistry, the founder of TWO, in an exclusive interaction with AIM.?

Read the full story here.?

Sify to Build 675 MW of Data Centre Capacity in Five Years

Sify Technologies, one of India’s leading data centre providers, recently announced its plans to build 675 MW of data centre capacity in the country over the next five years. Check out the complete roadmap here.?

AIM Explorer >>?

Inside Pixxel's Satellite Manufacturing Facility

In the latest episode of AIM Originals, we give you a sneak peek inside Pixxel's satellite manufacturing facility nestled in the bustling city of Bengaluru, India.?

Data & AI Events >>?

Data Engineering Summit 2024?

The countdown has ended. The third edition of the Data Engineering Summit (DES) 2024 will be held this week, May 30-31, 2024, at Radisson Blu, Bengaluru.

Do not miss it! Click here to register now.?

AI Nuggets >>?

• Microsoft and G42 have committed $1 billion to build sustainable, geothermal-powered data centres in Kenya, boosting East Africa's digital infrastructure and AI capabilities.
• Truecaller has partnered with Microsoft to utilise the new Personal Voice technology from Microsoft Azure AI Speech.
• IBM recently introduced IBM Concert, an AI-powered automation tool designed to help businesses navigate the growing complexity of modern applications.
• Google DeepMind recently introduced Semantica, an image-conditioned diffusion model capable of generating images based on the semantics of a conditioning image.
• Niantic Inc revealed that it uses Meta Llama models to generate creative behaviour in real-time as players interact with creatures in its latest AR game, Peridot.
• At VivaTech, the annual technology conference for startups, in Paris, Meta AI chief Yann LeCun advised students looking to work in the AI ecosystem not to work on LLMs.
• OpenAI announced a multi-year agreement with News Corp, the American mass media and publishing company.
• Cohere For AI has announced the launch of Aya 23, a family of generative LLMs featuring open weights for both 8-billion and 35-billion parameter versions.
• Databricks announced the launch of the Databricks AI Fund, a new strategic investment initiative aimed at supporting early—to growth-stage startups that leverage AI in innovative ways.
• AMD unveiled EPYC 4004 Series processors, offering SMEs and hosted IT providers cost-effective, high-performance solutions based on advanced 'Zen 4' architecture.
• Adobe recently launched Generative Remove in Lightroom, powered by its in-house model Adobe Firefly, for mobile, web, and desktop editing.
• At Canva’s first international Canva Create event in Los Angeles, the Australian design studio launched Canva Enterprise, a subscription service designed for large organisations.
• Genpact, in collaboration with HFS Research, released a report titled ‘The GenAI Countdown’. Learn more about it here.?
• Fractal Analytics claimed to have effectively reduced its call handling time by up to 15% using its latest innovation, Knowledge Assist, on AWS.
• Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal fulfilled his promise of moving all AI infrastructure workloads from Microsoft Azure to Krutrim AI Cloud.
• E2E Cloud has partnered with Atal Incubation Centre—Nalanda Institute of Technology Foundation (AIC-NITF), which is backed by the Atal Innovation Mission under NITI Aayog.
• Yotta Data Services has announced the appointment of Anil Pawar as its chief AI officer and head of its AI Cloud Business Unit.
• The Ministry of Electronics and IT recently appointed Prof Pushpak Bhattacharyya of IIT Bombay as the chairman of the National Committee on Indian Language Standards.