Author: TechBrunch

Chip company Nvidia has received permission from the European Union to complete its acquisition of Run:ai. The EU reached a unanimous decision today that allows Nvidia to proceed with its acquisition of Israeli GPU orchestration platform Run:ai, Bloomberg reports. The European Commission has determined that this business combination will not create a monopoly, as other hardware options compatible with Nvidia will continue to be available on the market even if the merger takes place. However, despite the EU's approval, the deal is still being held up by the US Department of Justice, and it is unclear when or if it…

Google announced Friday that the company is expanding Gemini's latest in-depth investigation mode to 40 additional languages. The company launched deep exploration mode earlier this month, allowing users of its Google One AI premium plan to unlock a type of AI-powered research assistant. Advanced features work in multiple steps, from creating a research plan to finding relevant information. Then, based on that information, the tool performs the search again to extract knowledge. After repeating this process several times, a report will be created. Languages ​​supported by Gemini include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada,…

For some, AI fatigue is real. But clearly venture investors haven’t grown tired of the category. AI deals continued to dominate venture funding during the third quarter. AI companies raised $19 billion in Q3, according to Crunchbase data. That figure represents 28% of all venture funding. The fourth quarter of 2024 has been no less busy for these outsized rounds. Elon Musk’s xAI raised a behemoth $6 billion round, one of seven AI funding rounds over $1 billion in 2024, in November. That’s just months after OpenAI raised its $6.6 billion round. Here are the U.S.-based AI companies that raised…

OpenAI has saved its biggest announcement for the final day of its 12-day “Shipmas” event. The company announced Friday the o3, the successor to the o1 “reasoning” model released earlier this year. o3 is more precisely a model family, just like o1. The o3 and o3-mini are small, refined models fine-tuned for specific tasks. OpenAI makes notable claims that o3 approaches AGI, at least under certain conditions, but with important caveats. See below for details. Our latest inference model, o3, is a breakthrough model with improved step functions on the most difficult benchmarks. We are currently beginning safety testing and…

OpenAI seems to be in the holiday spirit. The series of ChatGPT rollouts, dubbed “12 Days of OpenAI,” will be live-streamed every weekday at 10 a.m. Pacific time through December 20th. So far, we've seen the launch of ChatGPT Pro, OpenAI's $200/month subscription plan. The complete version of that “reasoning” o1 model. Text-to-video generator Sora is now available to the public. Deploying Canvas. ChatGPT for Apple Intelligence. ChatGPT's real-time video capabilities. Ability to call ChatGPT via a 1-800 number. You can find out how to watch the event below. OpenAI will livestream the event on its YouTube channel. We'll be…

AI is everywhere. And it is increasingly being described as a defense technology. This week, the Equity Pod gang (including newcomers Max Zeff, Margaux McCall, and Kirsten Kolosek) noticed a new trend: the worlds of AI and defense technology are colliding. It's important for several reasons. One is that venture capital is flowing into both AI and defense technology. Dual use will continue for a while. AI is also attracting attention from lawmakers and defense experts who are concerned about the impact of China and the United States maintaining their leading positions as developers of the technology. Listen to the…

There's a new venture fund in town. Swizzle Ventures, founded by Jessica Kamada, former COO of marketing agency Bamboo, has raised just over $5 million for Fund I, according to an SEC filing. There was no fundraising target. The company, quietly founded in 2023, is an early-stage company that aims to invest in companies that address the most pressing concerns facing women, including caregiving, health and finances. According to PitchBook, the company has invested in at least one company, mental health care platform Mavida Health. Kamata did not respond to a request for comment. A year ago, Kamata posted that…

There's a new venture fund in town. Swizzle Fund, founded by Jessica Kamada, former COO of marketing agency Bamboo, has raised just over $5 million for Fund I, according to an SEC filing. There was no fundraising target. Quietly founded in 2023, the company is an early-stage company that aims to invest in companies that address some of the most pressing concerns facing women, including caregiving, health and wellness, and finances. According to PitchBook, the company has invested in at least one company, mental health care platform Mavida Health. Kamata did not respond to a request for comment. A year…

The newest online-only school authorized by the Arizona Charter School Commission has a twist. The academic curriculum will be taught entirely by AI. Charter schools are independently operated but publicly funded, and typically have greater autonomy than traditional public schools in how subjects are taught. But Unbound Academy's application proposes an “AI-driven adaptive learning technology” that “condenses academic instruction into a two-hour window,” a first for this model. (Unbound's founders are running a similar program at an “upscale private school” in Texas, which appears to be in-person.) Unbound's approach relies on education technology platforms like IXL and Khan Academy, where…

A May ransomware attack on Ascension, a U.S. health care giant with more than 140 hospitals and dozens of senior living facilities, allowed hackers to attack 5.6 million patients, according to a new filing with the Maine attorney general. They were able to steal personal information and confidential medical information. The cyber attack caused widespread disruption across the hospital system, with some staff saying it resulted in dire medical consequences, including delayed or lost test results and medication errors. The Black Busta gang was blamed for the attack, and the group stole patients' medical information, including clinic dates, lab tests,…