The Stakes are High in the Ongoing AI Arms Race Among Major Tech Companies

November 20, 2023 - Baystreet.ca


USA News Group – The market is witnessing an arms race in Artificial Intelligence (AI) so to speak, with several tech giants ramping up their arsenals to compete with each other in the new age of AI. The stakes have never been higher, with analysts projecting the Generative AI market to hit $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. Google parent company Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL) (NEO:GOOG) recently committed to invest up to $2 billion in OpenAI competitor Anthropic, the creator of the Claude 2 chatbot, which already received an $4 billion investment from Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDQ:AMZN) (NEO:AMZN), and was valued at $4.1 billion earlier this year. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) (NEO:MSFT) made its own huge splash, making a $13-billion bet that made into OpenAI, likely the largest publicly announcement investment in the space. While platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude 2 are steadily becoming household names up front, behind the scenes are several other developers providing AI solutions on the back end, including Avant Technologies Inc. (OTC:AVAI) and Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM).

One of the biggest hurdles for businesses looking to bolster their wares with AI are the massive computing costs, and an impending global data storage crisis predicted to hit by 2025.

Among the firms looking to bridge that gap is Avant Technologies Inc. (OTC:AVAI), which is advancing the next generation of cloud supercomputing. According to Avant, their cloud supercomputing network has the potential to be the world’s most powerful and cost-effective private cloud infrastructure.

“The proliferation of the AI, machine learning and big data analytics industries is already rapidly outpacing the capabilities of traditional cloud infrastructure for an industry that demands exponential computer power and storage capacity,” said Timothy Lantz, Chief Executive Officer of Avant. “We recognized this real unmet need and began working to develop a next generation, ultra-high-density supercomputing environment that will revolutionize the landscape for AI companies of all sizes and for any other users who require hyper-scalable, cost-effective computing power.”

Avant’s plan is to address these pervasive costs and performance limitations that continue to hinder AI, machine learning, and big data analytics development and commercialization. As per the company’s stated goals, Avant plans to deliver superior performance and value to a host of industries with its private cloud infrastructure by reducing costs, offering increased computing density and providing differentiated ESG benefits via dramatically reduced electricity and water consumption.

Avant’s purpose-built computing environment is being designed to support all major AI frameworks, which will ensure compatibility and ease of development. This focus on interoperability will enable AI developers to leverage much if not all of their existing core technology stacks, while still benefiting from Avant’s performance boost and more favorable cost profile. The Avant environment will be tailored to the complex computing needs of AI applications, that will enable fast and efficient data transfer between all components to achieve unprecedented system performance, availability, and scalability.

Among AI-focused businesses within the supply chain, is automation technology innovator Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM) which has unveiled several initiatives, including the establishment of GreenBox Systems LLC, a joint venture with SoftBank to address the more than $500 billion annual warehouse-as-a-service market. Along with the announcement, Symbotic also announced an approximately $7.5 billion new customer contract with Greenbox, who will be the exclusive provider of Symbotic systems in the warehouse-as-a-service market. With the joint venture’s establishment, SoftBank and Symbotic own 65% and 35% of GreenBox, respectively.

"GreenBox taps into the powerful potential of A.I. and other enabling technologies in supply chains, while also making the benefits of automation accessible to more businesses through an ‘as-a-service’ offering," said Vikas J. Parekh, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “In partnership with Symbotic, GreenBox will equip customers with more intelligent, streamlined, and scalable warehousing solutions while eliminating the burden of major capital expenditures.”

While the back-end of the AI revolution is important, the front-end uses such as chatbots have captured the bulk of the media and society’s attention. And though ChatGPT is easily OpenAI’s most well known asset, the AI-company’s partnership with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) (NEO:MSFT) goes deeper. For example, Friss, one of the world’s most implemented solutions for trust automation at P&C carriers recently collaborated to enhance its AI fraud model explanations using Microsoft Azuer OpenAI Service.

“We are pleased to support the digital transformation of business processes in the insurance industry, especially in this new era of AI,” says Matthew Kerner, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud for Industry. “FRISS brings differentiated new experiences to insurance customers with the power of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. With a deep understanding of the insurance domain, FRISS has the know-how to apply Azure OpenAI Service responsibly to core business processes of insurers and other regulated firms.”

The FRISS announcement is just a piece of Microsoft’s offerings involving their collaboration with OpenAI. According to Reuters, the strong focus on OpenAI investment has benefitted Microsoft and hurt Google parent company Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL) (NEO:GOOG).

"Demand for artificial intelligence drove Microsoft's growth,” Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi told Reuters. “Demand among Google's larger clients was similar, but the firm is more exposed to high-growth and startup clients, which have been more aggressive with cost-control efforts."

Google isn’t sitting tight, as it announced its $2 billion commitment to invest in Anthropic, beginning with a $500 million upfront injection, and an additional $1.5 billion over time. What’s interesting is the brain trust behind Anthropic, the company was founded by Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s former vice president of research, and his sister, Daniela Amodei, who was OpenAI’s vice president of safety and policy., along with several other OpenAI research alumni on Anthropic’s founding team.

“It’s a really unusual time from a business perspective because there’s just so much demand for large language models and really more demand than the industry can currently provide,” said Dario Amodei. “The landscape is just very wide, and there’s really quite a lot of room for many different users and types of users to make use of these systems.”

After already receiving funding from Salesforce, Zoom, and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDQ:AMZN) (NEO:AMZN), Anthropic has garnered a valuation of $4.1 billion earlier this year. Anthropic says it’s Claude AI model is safer than rival AI services because it can revise its own responses without human moderation.

Their moves have drawn significant interest, and now the $2 billion investment from Google, and up to $4 billion from Amazon. In the case of the latter deal, Amazon is set to acquire a minority stake in Anthropic and plans to integrate Anthropic's tech into multiple areas of its business, including the Amazon Bedrock platform for creating AI apps. In return, Anthropic will utilize Amazon's specialized chips to develop and launch its upcoming AI base models. The company has also pledged to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its main cloud service provider.

Source: https://usanewsgroup.com/2023/10/26/unlocking-the-trillion-dollar-ai-market-what-investors-need-to-know/

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