In a major move in the AI space, AMD has announced the acquisition of Finnish AI startup Silo AI for $665 million. Silo AI is known as Europe’s largest private AI lab and has notable clients such as Allianz, Unilever, and Rolls-Royce. The CEO of Silo AI, Peter Sarlin, will continue to lead his team within AMD’s AI Group. This acquisition is aimed at enhancing AMD’s AI model and software development, positioning them as a stronger competitor to Nvidia in the AI hardware market. With AMD expanding its AI offerings with the MI300 accelerators and projecting $4 billion in revenue this year, the company’s market cap is near an all-time high at $286 billion.
AI video startup Captions has recently raised $60 million in funding, valuing the company at $500 million. The New York-based team has seen significant growth, expanding from 15 to 60 members in the past year. The platform simplifies video creation for non-experts, offering tools such as text-to-speech via photorealistic avatars and script generation. Captions also provides translations for subtitles and dubs in 28 languages, integrating large language models from OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as voice cloning from ElevenLabs. The round of funding was led by Index Ventures, with participation from return and new investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital, among others.
Odyssey, a new UK startup co-founded by veterans from the self-driving car industry, has received $9 million in funding for its Hollywood-grade Gen-AI text-to-video platform. The platform aims to generate cinematic-quality visuals and effects that are editable, addressing the limitations of current text-to-video tools. Odyssey’s team consists of AI researchers from major tech companies and artists who have worked on features like Dune and Avengers. Investors in the company include Google Ventures and DeepMind’s Jeff Dean, showing strong support for the innovative platform.
Infinite Reality, a metaverse technology company based in New York, has raised $350 million in investment and acquired game developer Landvault for $450 million, increasing its valuation to $5.1 billion. The company has been on an acquisition spree this year, spending over $800 million in stock on various companies. The recent $350 million investment was secured from a private multi-family office focused on global technology, media, and real estate. This funding will be used to accelerate the company’s growth in the immersive technology market.
In the mobile market, Apple is experiencing an AI-related boost with expectations that iPhone 16 shipments will be approximately 10% higher than iPhone 15 sales. This growth is attributed to the interest in Apple’s advanced AI capabilities. However, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shared a rumor that Siri, Apple’s AI voice assistant, may not be ready to handle complex tasks like controlling other apps until next spring. Meanwhile, Samsung has introduced new AI features in its Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Galaxy Z Fold 6 phones, including Note Assist for translating, summarizing, and auto-formatting notes, as well as the ProVisual Engine for optimizing photo quality.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink has announced plans to implant its second human patient despite issues with the first trial. The brain-computer interface technology aims to help those with paralysis, with the first implant showing limited functionality. Neuralink is making changes to address these issues, such as sculpting the skull surface and inserting threads deeper. While Neuralink plans to implant more patients this year, no BCI, including Neuralink, has FDA approval for commercialization. The AI space continues to show significant growth and innovation, with companies across various sectors making strategic moves to enhance their capabilities and offerings.
