Welcome to the inaugural flight of AI Quick Takes with TalPoint,  your new Saturday morning ritual. Forget the cartoons and cereal; we’re serving up the hottest, bite-sized AI news to kickstart your weekend. So grab your coffee, and let’s decode the future, one byte at a time!

Read time: under 4 minutes

AI Spotlight

Just how rich are businesses getting in the AI gold rush? Let’s decipher the winners in the AI Gold Rush.

The big question on everyone’s minds: Who’s really cashing in on this AI frenzy? To find out, The Economist dove deep into the AI “stack” – that’s geek speak for the layers of tech magic that make AI tick. From hardware heavyweights to cloud computing champs and the brains behind AI models, it’s a veritable who’s who of tech titans.

Nvidia: The King of AI Hill

If there’s one name you need to remember in this saga, it’s Nvidia. Nvidia has solidified its dominance in the AI chip market and captured a significant portion of the hardware market’s value growth. But it’s not just about the silicon – their CUDA platform has become the golden handcuffs for developers, making a switch to rivals as appealing as a leap into the unknown.

Model Makers: The Intellectual Powerhouses

Then there are the model makers, the brainiacs behind AI marvels like ChatGPT. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are not just participants in the industry; they’re reshaping the landscape, with their valuations increasing at an unprecedented pace. But with great power comes great competition, and the battle for AI supremacy will prove to be fierce.

AI Applications: The New Frontier

Traditional software is taking a backseat as AI applications, from Zoom’s call summarizers to Adobe’s Firefly for enhancing images, become increasingly prominent. With more than 12,000 AI applications now reported, the field is highly competitive and dynamic. However, in this burgeoning landscape, not every venture achieves success.

Cloud Giants: Holding the Ace

Lastly, cloud giants such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft are aggressively investing in AI’s future. As their market caps expand significantly, it’s evident that investors are confident in these companies’ ability to spearhead the advancement into the AI era.

The AI Layer Cake: Everyone Wants a Piece

From Nvidia’s hardware dominance to OpenAI’s venture into the unknown, the race to control the AI stack is on. As Nvidia gears up to unveil its latest tech marvels, one thing’s clear: in the AI gold rush, they’re not just playing to win; they’re playing to rule. Stay tuned for more twists and turns and until next time, keep your algorithms close and your AI closer.

Trending AI Technologies

Nvidia showed off its next-gen chip: At Nvidia’s developer event, praised by analysts as the “Woodstock of AI,” CEO Jensen Huang presented the company’s next step in technology. Addressing a full house, Huang unveiled Blackwell, Nvidia’s latest and more advanced graphics processor chip design. This innovation, the company asserts, far exceeds the performance of chips presently underpinning the majority of AI technology. Reflecting on the success of the prior design that elevated Nvidia to the status of the world’s third-most valuable company, Huang highlighted the need for further advancement, stating, “The old design was good, but we need bigger GPUs” to continue pushing the boundaries in AI development.

AI Data Point

Despite being in the nascent stages of the generative-AI era, it has proven to be a financial bonanza. The aggregate valuation of approximately 100 companies under review has surged by $8 trillion since the inception of this period, marked from October 2022, just prior to ChatGPT’s introduction. While this remarkable growth isn’t solely attributable to the AI boom—given the overall bullish trend in stock markets—it’s undeniable that a significant portion of these gains stem from the excitement around artificial intelligence advancements.

Company Watch

Apple Is in Talks to Let Google Gemini Power iPhone AI Features: Apple and Google, the tech giants often seen as rivals, are reportedly in talks to bring Google’s Gemini AI into the iPhone’s core, a move that could reshape the AI landscape. While Apple has flirted with the idea of using OpenAI’s models, Google’s AI seems to be leading the race. This partnership, still shrouded in secrecy, hints at Apple’s ambition to supercharge its devices with cutting-edge AI capabilities, albeit with a little help from its friends at Google.

The potential deal suggests that Apple’s own AI endeavors haven’t quite hit the mark, leading it to potentially partner up with Google. If the rumors hold true, billions of iPhone users could soon find their devices powered by Google’s AI brain, blending Apple’s hardware finesse with Google’s AI muscle.

But this isn’t just a tech love story; it’s a development that could attract the gaze of antitrust regulators, given the already scrutinized search deal between these two. With both companies keeping cards close to their chests, the tech world is on tenterhooks, awaiting a possible reveal at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Behind the scenes, Apple promises major AI breakthroughs, positioning itself as a company not just playing catch-up but aiming to lead the AI charge. Yet, by potentially partnering with Google, Apple might be acknowledging that in the race towards AI dominance, collaboration could be the key to unlocking true innovation.

Practical AI

Let AI do the recommending: Tell this chatbot what you’re into, and it’ll suggest movies, books, TV shows, and podcasts.

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