Tech3 | Davos 2024: Andrew Ng's advice for AI startups; and more

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In today’s newsletter:?

• Davos 2024: Andrew Ng's advice for AI startups?
• Swiggy CEO takes lessons from Zomato IPO
• Revolut’s India plan remains on shelf

Davos 2024: Andrew Ng's advice for AI startups?

As companies race to build the world’s most successful large language model, Andrew Ng, the co-founder of Coursera, and CEO of Landing AI, has some advice that AI startup founders across the world might want to pay attention to.

Driving the news:?In a conversation with us at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ng said that there is a significant untapped opportunity in developing generative AI applications as opposed to building large language models (LLMs).

“There are so many more opportunities in applications of AI to healthcare, financial services, IT consulting, and so on. These have huge opportunities that relatively very few people are working on,” Ng told us.

Ng believes that while there will be huge winners building LLMs, the space is already hyper competitive.

• Coursera’s CEO Jeff Maggioncalda agreed that such domain-specific applications using domain-specific data will unlock a lot of value, and competitive advantage

?Ng on OpenAI's policy shift: Ng, meanwhile, also condemned OpenAI’s decision to delete a provision in its usage policy ?that forbade its technology from being used in war.

“I think none of us want to ever see AI used to wage an unjust war. And seeing what's happened with Russia's attack on Ukraine, there are unfortunate things already being done with even older generations of AI technologies,” Ng said.?

More highlights from our WEF Davos coverage:

• India's large youth population and thriving startup ecosystem make it well-positioned in the global AI race, says Cathy Li, head of AI data and Metaverse at the World Economic Forum. Li notes that while the West leads in AI advancements, first-mover advantage doesn't guarantee the best position, and India has a sea of opportunities. More on that here

• Hero MotoCorp is making significant strides in the electric vehicle (EV) sector. The company's newly appointed CEO, Niranjan Gupta, believes that a clear winner is yet to emerge in the EV ecosystem. Find out more
• Noshir Kaka, a senior partner at McKinsey, said that while there is speculation about disruptive technologies like AI impacting jobs, it is "too early" to confirm such effects. Find out more

• S4 Capital's Martin Sorrell said that India will roar past Japan and Germany to become the world's third largest economy by 2025. He added that India is the leader of the new Asia and lauded Prime Minister Naredra Modi for effectively positioning the country on the global stage. Find out more

Prefer video? Check out our daily Davos bulletin ?that brings you the top highlights from Day 1 of the World Economic Forum.

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