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Elon Musk is making waves again, this time with a massive funding round for his AI venture. xAI just secured a whopping $6 billion in Series B funding, one of the largest venture capital rounds ever. This position xAI as a contender in the AI race against OpenAI and Google. Let’s unpack this...

Today’s Summary:

• xAI raises $6 billion

• GPT-4 beats humans in financial report analysis

• Apple’s AI ambitions

• China’s $47B chip fund

• EU undecided on ChatGPT compliance

• 2 new tools

TOP STORY

Elon Musk's xAI Raises Massive $6B Round

The Summary: Elon Musk's AI company xAI has raised a staggering $6 billion in Series B funding - one of the largest venture capital funding rounds of all time.

The funds will help xAI take its products to market, build compute infrastructure, and ramp up research into future AI technologies as it races rivals like OpenAI and Google. Musk disclosed an $18 billion pre-money valuation that makes xAI worth approximately one-third of OpenAI.

Key details:

• $6 billion Series B funding round for xAI

• Investors include Valor, a16z, Sequoia, Fidelity, Al Waleed

• Funding to commercialize xAI’s products

• Build Gigafactory of Compute with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs by 2025

• Accelerate R&D into next-gen AI tech

• xAI is now hiring

Why it matters: The massive funding positions xAI as a major player in the heated AI race alongside giants like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. With huge capital to invest in compute, talent, and R&D, xAI can push hard to catch up its rivals. The fundraise underscores immense investor appetite for backing AI efforts.

FINANCE

GPT-4 Outperforms Humans in Financial Analysis

The Summary: New research finds that GPT-4 can analyze financial statements more accurately than human analysts in predicting earnings changes.

While analysts use qualitative context, GPT-4 discerns patterns from quantitative data. Its performance matches that of specialized AI models trained specifically for this task. The findings highlight GPT-4's remarkable ability to make informed judgments in quantitative domains.

Key details:

• GPT-4 achieved 60% accuracy in predicting earnings increases/decreases

• Human analysts ranged from 53-57% accuracy

• GPT-4 and analysts are complementary, with AI performing better when analysts exhibit bias, and analysts adding value by providing soft context

• GPT-4 matched state-of-the-art neural networks trained on this specific task

• Model gleaned insights by analyzing trends and computing financial ratios

• Performed well without any additional qualitative context

• Showed strong theoretical understanding and economic reasoning

• Valuable for investors making financial decisions

Why it matters: The results demonstrate AI going beyond just text processing to perform quantitative reasoning and judgment tasks. The findings open up possibilities for AI to play a more direct role in investment analysis. The research highlights the potential of AI to disrupt financial information processing.

APPLE

Apple Gears Up to Join the AI Party

The Summary: Apple is set to unveil its approach to artificial intelligence at WWDC 24 on June 10, focusing on practical tools for consumers. While rivals like Microsoft and Google have grabbed headlines with advanced AI models, Apple aims to integrate AI into core apps and services like Safari, Photos, and Notes.

Rumored features include smart recaps, AI-powered photo editing, and emoji generation. Apple will leverage its massive user base, with AI capabilities tailored for devices released in the past year.

Key details:

• Project Greymatter to integrate AI tools across Apple's ecosystem

• On-device processing for less intensive tasks, cloud for heavy lifting

• AI could be used for Siri, web searches, email/message replies, emojis

• Rumored OpenAI partnership for advanced language models

• No full-fledged chatbot yet, relying on third-party integrations

Why it matters: While not as cutting-edge as rivals, Apple's AI push could make the technology accessible to hundreds of millions of users overnight. By focusing on practical applications for its massive installed base, Apple could emerge as a major AI player despite being a latecomer.

QUICK NEWS

Quick news

• China invests $47 billion in largest ever chip fund

• EU regulators remain undecided on ChatGPT's compliance with data protection laws

• An inspiring visualization of convolutional neural networks, shared by Yann LeCun

TOOLS

🥇 New tools

• Forloop - No-code platform for web scraping and data automation

• Iki - Searchable library and assistant powered by AI