Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote at Computex Taipei marked the official launch of the company’s Grace Hopper Superchip, a breakthrough in accelerated processing, designed for giant-scale AI and high-performance computing applications. Huang also raised the curtain on Nvidia’s new supercomputer, the DGX GH200, which connects 256 Hopper chips into a single data-center-sized GPU with 144 terabytes of scalable shared memory to build massive AI models at the enterprise level. Google, Meta and Microsoft are among the first in line to gain access to the DGX GH200, positioned as “a blueprint for future hyperscale generative AI infrastructure.” Continue reading Nvidia Announces a Wide Range of AI Initiatives at Computex

With artificial intelligence development dating back to the 1950s, IBM was clearly ahead of its time. The company has quietly built a commercial portfolio, with more than 100 million customers across 20 industries using its Watson suite, the company says. At its annual Think conference, the company unboxed IBM Watsonx, a next-generation platform that leverages the scale and scope of foundation models to provide custom solutions for data-driven clients. Described as an “enterprise studio for AI builders,” Watsonx is an end-to-end framework that combines the tools, infrastructure and consulting expertise corporations can use to onboard AI. Continue reading IBM Bows Watsonx Suite of Enterprise AI Products, Services

OpenAI is readying ChatGPT Business, a new subscription tier “for professionals who need more control over their data as well as enterprises seeking to manage their end users.” Pricing plans have yet to be disclosed for ChatGPT Business, which will be rolling out in the coming months, but OpenAI said it will adhere to the company’s API’s data usage policies, which means that by default end users’ data would not be used to train its models. The business plan was mentioned as part of an announcement disclosing that all ChatGPT users now have the ability to turn off their chat history. Continue reading OpenAI Previews ChatGPT Business, Unveils Privacy Controls

Generative AI has become a buzzword in the business community, resulting in 65 percent of executives in a recent KPMG survey saying they believe the technology will have a high or extremely high impact on their organization in the next three to five years. Yet most say they are unprepared for immediate adoption, with 60 percent estimating they are 12 to 24 months from implementing their first generative AI solution. Fewer than half of respondents say they have the right technology, talent, and governance in place to successfully implement generative AI. Continue reading Enterprise Anticipates AI Impact but Few Execs Are Prepared

As Microsoft ushers in Kya Sainsbury-Carter to head its $18 billion digital advertising business, Bing Chat is joining her at center stage. The company has plans for generative AI to transform the category, including with paid links in chat results. Since February the company has been testing ads in Bing Chat searches. Microsoft hasn’t disclosed how many people are using the new Bing with AI chat, nor how many ads it has served. Bing Chat’s responses include footnoted links to resources amplifying the information in the chatbot’s conversational answers, but sometimes it links to paid search ads. Continue reading Microsoft’s Bing Chat Powers a New Approach to Advertising

After many years of academia leading the way in the development of artificial intelligence, the tides have shifted and industry has taken over, according to the 2023 AI Index, a report created by Stanford University with help from companies including Google, Anthropic and Hugging Face. “In 2022, there were 32 significant industry-produced machine learning models compared to just three produced by academia,” the report says. The shift in influence is attributed mainly to the large resource demands — in staff, computing power and training data — required to create state of the art AI systems. Continue reading Report: Enterprise Supplants Academia as Driving Force of AI

Twitter did not implement the check mark purge set for April 1, when it said it would remove the blue verification symbols from the accounts of celebrities, influencers and politicians who were not paying $8 per month for a Twitter Blue subscription. The weekend came and went with the status of so-called “legacy verifications” largely unchanged. Twitter’s owner and CEO, Elon Musk, says he still plans to monetize verifications, and that U.S. businesses and governments will be charged $1,000 monthly to retain their checkmarks — gold for businesses and gray for governments. Continue reading Changes to Twitter’s Legacy Verifications Lead to Confusion

Nvidia is launching new cloud services to help businesses leverage AI at scale. Under the banner Nvidia AI Foundations, the company is providing tools to let clients build and run their own generative AI models that are custom trained on data specific to the intended task. The individual cloud offerings are Nvidia NeMo for language models and Nvidia Picasso for 3D visuals including video and images. Speaking at Nvidia’s annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) last week, CEO Jensen Huang said “the impressive capabilities of generative AI have created a sense of urgency for companies to reimagine their products and business models.” Continue reading Nvidia Introduces Cloud Services to Leverage AI Capabilities

A video editing app from China’s ByteDance is gaining in popularity in the U.S. even as the parent company comes under fire for its viral video app TikTok potentially threatening national security. App-tracking firms including Shanghai-based Diandian show CapCut has more U.S. downloads than TikTok in recent weeks. CapCut lets users quickly create online memes and videos using templates and filters that include music and visual effects. Users say the app helps them achieve professional-looking results that are more likely to go viral on TikTok, as well as Facebook, Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube. Continue reading ByteDance Video Editing App ‘CapCut’ Gains Traction in U.S.

The demand for artificial intelligence by enterprise as well as consumers is putting tremendous pressure on cloud service providers to meet the vast data center resources required to train the models and deploy the resulting apps. Microsoft recently opened up about the pivotal role it played in getting OpenAI’s ChatGPT to the release phase via its Azure cloud computing platform, linking “tens of thousands” of Nvidia A100 GPUs to train the model. Microsoft is already upgrading Azure with Nvidia’s new H100 chips and latest InfiniBand networking to accommodate the next generation of AI supercomputers. Continue reading Microsoft Believes Azure Platform Is Unlocking ‘AI Revolution’

Google is readying an API and other enterprise tools for its Pathways Language Model (PaLM) — a large language model similar to GPT — to encourage developers to create chatbots and other apps using the platform. PaLM is one of Google’s most advanced systems, with the capability to generate text, images, code, video and audio from natural language prompts. Much like OpenAI’s GTP series and the LLaMA family from Meta Platforms, it is suitable for a wide variety of general tasks. To facilitate PaLM’s use for specific tasks, Google is launching the MakerSuite along with the PaLM API. Continue reading Google’s PaLM API, MakerSuite Coming to Select Developers

Well-funded software startups are springing up to target the enterprise market with generative artificial intelligence technology of the type popularized by ChatGPT. In 2022, global venture-capital investors parked $1.3 billion in more than 78 generative AI startup deals, according to PitchBook Data. That’s nearly as much as the combined capital investment in other tech startups over the past five years, and it came at a time when the broader investment sector was experiencing a slowdown, PitchBook found. Two of Q4’s biggest venture deals were for the generative AI startups Jasper, based in Austin, Texas, and Stability AI, headquartered in London. Continue reading Venture Capital Investors Are Drawn to Generative AI Startups

The Biden administration has issued rules requiring key U.S. companies to meet minimum cybersecurity standards. The new National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) calls on software makers and American industry to be more active in the fight to repel hackers and ransomware groups even as the FBI accelerates global efforts to disrupt bad actors. Although the strategy is a policy document rather than an executive order, it represents a major policy shift, escalating participation by both the public and private sectors, while anticipating legislative changes required to give teeth to the plan. Continue reading Biden Advocates Tougher Cybersecurity for Private Enterprise

As technology leaders manage pressure to control costs, cloud computing expenditures are getting increased scrutiny. Dedicated teams to manage cloud spending and dedicated tools designed to increase efficiencies are two of the measures being employed. The result is that while cloud spending continues to increase, it is at a slower pace than had been expected. The latest Gartner projection posits worldwide growth of 18.5 percent, to $576.5 billion this year, slightly less than the 18.8 percent uptick previously forecast. This follows a Synergy Research finding of 27 percent Q4 U.S. growth, lagging the 31 percent expected. Continue reading CTOs Prioritize Controlling Cloud in Tough Economic Climate

What a difference a year makes. CES 2023 attracted more than 115,000 attendees from 140 countries to Las Vegas where 3,000 companies filled 2 million square feet of exhibit space. Among the major themes relevant to M&E this year were artificial intelligence, the multiverse, AR and immersive experiences, displays, mobility, IoT, and numerous policy and regulation topics. ETC@USC attended the convention with onsite and remote teams, once again blending its in-person tradition with a virtual presence. Our post-show report features extensive coverage and perspectives related to these key creative, business, and technology areas. Continue reading CES 2023 Report: Connection, Collaboration and Cooperation