It was a bit of a turbulent week, as investors continued pouring money into artificial intelligence companies such as Glean even as it’s not yet apparent when the AI money gusher will arrive — assuming it will.
Just Friday, Elon Musk threw in a haymaker, suing OpenAI for — get this — trying too hard to make a profit. The SEC joined in too.
Meantime, enterprise technology earnings reports came in largely positive this week, as Dell Technologies and NetApp knocked it out of the park, while a few exceptions such as Snowflake, Elastic and Thoughtworks missed estimates and saw their shares plunge.
TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s video studio, was onsite at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona all week, interviewing the likes of Michael Dell, HPE CEO Antonio Neri and Broadcom Semiconductor Solutions Group President Charlie Kawwas, among others. MWC wasn’t just about 5G as it has been recently, not least because there isn’t really a killer app for it, SiliconANGLE CEO John Furrier says. Rather it’s all about the silicon. Check out the coverage for more on why.
You can read about this and other news on theCUBE Pod, John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast, out now on YouTube from Barcelona. And don’t miss Dave Vellante’s weekly deep dive into technologies and trends, Breaking Analysis, coming out this weekend.
Here’s a sampling of this week’s news:
Big bucks, new challenges for AI
Tony Baer’s two-part dissection of generative AI’s challenges (mainly it’s crazy expensive) and its potential (hint: it’s not all about those huge models):
Is that giant sucking sound generative AI?
How will generative AI pay off?
OpenAI fights back: OpenAI to court: New York Times’ lawsuit used evidence obtained through hacking
But then on Thursday, Elon Musk sued OpenAI for breach of contract, allegedly violating the company’s principles and becoming a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft: Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over alleged breach of contract
That came just a couple of days after the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly (via the Wall Street Journal) is looking into whether the company misled investors, based on internal communications from CEO Sam Altman.
Yet the big bucks keep on coming into AI:
AI-powered enterprise search startup Glean raises $200M+ at $2.2B valuation
Humanoid AI-driven robotics startup Figure raises $675M at $2.6B valuation
Ideogram raises $80M as it releases text-to-image model
AI app startup FlowGPT raises $10M in funding
Intenseye, which uses AI computer vision to enhance workplace safety, raises $61M
Startup Slice, which uses generative AI to ensure equity compliance, raises $7M in seed funding
AI chip startup Groq acquires Definitive Intelligence to scale its cloud platform
Along with all the new models:
Now a Microsoft partner, Mistral AI challenges OpenAI with three new LLMs
Writer announces Palmyra-Vision, a multimodal LLM capable of understanding image
SambaNova debuts ‘composition of experts’ AI model with 1T+ parameters
StarCoder2 AI code generator released with support for 619 programming languages
And new products:
Look out, Sora: Lightricks launches LTX Studio to advance realism in text-to-video generation
Salesforce launches Einstein Copilot AI assistant into beta
ServiceNow and Nvidia bring powerful generative AI tools to telecom providers
GitHub’s enterprise-grade Copilot tool is now generally available
Stack Overflow inks AI partnership with Google Cloud
Couchbase’s database gets support for vector search and retrieval-augmented generation
And… new troubles:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai calls inaccurate Gemini responses ‘unacceptable,’ promises fix
Mozilla research reveals AI-generated content labeling falls short
Peace, not war: Tumblr and WordPress are gearing up to sell their data to AI companies
The big news and analysis from MWC
TheCUBE was onsite in Barcelona all week at the mobile industry’s biggest event. Here’s what our analysts learned, along with the most important news from the event on SiliconANGLE:
Telecom’s tipping point: Monetization, AI and the power of partnership at MWC
AI networking and silicon synergy shape the future of telecom: theCUBE day one analysis at MWC
Navigating the evolving landscape of telecommunications: theCUBE’s day 2 keynote analysis from MWC
Analysts discuss Open RAN: Challenges, promises and AI in telecom
Analysts dissect Cisco’s challenges and its path toward AI networking
Collaboration at MWC: Industry analyst sees cloud and telco companies forming closer ties
The rise of AI, edge computing and the future of connectivity: Final insights from Mobile World Congress
A different take from Intellyx’s Jason Bloomberg: Beyond the buzz: IoT and AI innovation at Mobile World Congress
Michael Dell shares his vision of AI-powered connectivity and innovation at MWC
Antonio Neri on HPE’s blueprint for AI networking, edge-to-cloud and data insights
Juniper Networks’ CEO Rami Rahim weighs in on AI, edge opportunity for telcos and HPE acquisition
Nvidia’s lightweight RTX 500 and 1000 GPUs to power new generation of AI-accelerated laptops
Intel unveils Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids-D Xeon processors to support ‘AI Everywhere’
Intel’s new Intel vPro platform to power the next generation of AI PCs
At MWC, AI and wireless vendors come together to form the AI-RAN Alliance
Qualcomm debuts new wireless networking chips and AI model bundle
Broadcom/VMware targets telecom network modernization and security at the edge And analysis from Zeus Kerravala: VMware, as part of Broadcom, releases new 5G, SD-WAN, SASE and edge compute solutions at MWC 2024
ServiceNow and Nvidia bring powerful generative AI tools to telecom providers
Google integrates generative AI features into Messages, Maps, Android Auto and more
Around the enterprise and cloud
Regulatory watch
EU launches investigations into Microsoft over security software practices, Mistral AI investment
Google is facing $2.3M lawsuit from dozens of European media companies over ad practices
SEC investigating whether OpenAI investors were misled (from the Wall Street Journal)
Earnings
Dell shares soar on strong earnings and growth forecasts
Snowflake’s stock tumbles as CEO Frank Slootman announces he’s stepping down
Salesforce reports earnings beat, shares hold steady after-hours
Okta shares surge after reporting strong earnings and revenue growth
HPE’s stock drops on big revenue decline, while NetApp heads upward
HP shares drop after falling short on revenue in first quarter
Pure Storage’s shift to AI and cloud subscriptions pays off with strong earnings beat
Nutanix comfortably beats forecasts despite uncertain macroeconomic backdrop
Zoom reports revenue and earning beats, shares rise in late trading
Workday squeezes past the Street’s expectations and acquires AI talent recruitment startup
Thoughtworks shares plunge 28%+ on fourth-quarter earnings miss
Zscaler shares dip despite outperforming earnings expectations
Autodesk’s fiscal 2024 ends on a high note, as earnings exceed analysts’ predictions
Elastic TK…
Splunk reported positive fourth-quarter results, but since it also said the deal to be acquired by Cisco is likely to close late this quarter or early next, investors yawned.
Artificial intelligence play C3.ai climbs almost 13% on earnings report, outlook (from Investor’s Business Daily)
Duolingo’s stock soars more than 20% after ‘record’ bookings, quarterly profit for company (from MarketWatch)
Zuora’s Q4 earnings results: Revenue in line with expectations (from Yahoo Finance)
In other news
Broadcom to offload VMware’s remote access computing business to KKR in $3.8B deal
Intel launches standalone FPGA business and previews upcoming chips
Oracle’s autonomous database goes distributed and global
Cox Enterprises buys gov tech leader OpenGov for $1.8B
Submarine data cables in Red Sea reportedly damaged by Houthi Rebels
Case study: Geofencing helps construction firm avoid $2.5M in equipment theft
IPOs warming, slowly? Cloud storage service Egnyte hires banks for IPO, sources say (from Reuters)
MongoDB expands global availability of MongoDB Atlas to six additional cloud regions
Cyber beat
That didn’t take long: LockBit ransomware gang returns after being temporarily disrupted by law enforcement
Surge in high-risk open-source vulnerabilities found in commercial codebases
Researchers find security flaw in multiple smart doorbells
US launches ‘unprecedented’ investigation into Chinese connected cars, citing national security concerns
Biden issues executive order protecting Americans’ data from countries of concern
Elsewhere around tech
That’s a big crash: Apple reportedly scraps ‘Project Titan’ electric car project
US Supreme Court seems split over landmark social media laws
Comings and goings
Dbt Labs names former Rubrik Exec Austin Stefani chief revenue officer
What’s next
Enterprise earnings reports show down, but there will be a few bellwethers next week:
Monday, March 4: GitLab
Tuesday, March 5: Box, CrowdStrike, Couchbase and HashiCorp
Thursday, March 7: Broadcom, Marvell Semi, MongoDB and DocuSign
Image: SiliconANGLE/Google Gemini
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SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation serving innovative audiences and brands, bringing together cutting-edge technology, influential content, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — such as those established in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology, and AI. .
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