OpenAI is becoming a for-profit company

Sep 26, 2024

Good morning,

The FTC has put bogus AI companies on blast, as it begins a crackdown on overhype. At the same time, the Justice Department wants companies and people to consider the risks of AI more broadly. Sam Altman is about to become a very wealthy man as OpenAI moves from non-profit to a for-profit structure, awarding him equity, at the same time that the company raises $6.5B at a $150B valuation. At the same time, more shake-ups are happening in the company’s C-suite as Mira Murati departs.

Let’s go!

News Headlines:

Tropical Storm Helene set to be one of the fastest-developing, major hurricanes before buffeting Florida's Gulf coast (AP)
Israel and Hezbollah conflict intensifies with cross border strikes into Israel and Lebanon (RT)
Top economist in China vanishes after criticizing Xi in private WeChat comments (WSJ)
China surprises with first intercontinental ballistic missile test-fire in decades, lands between Hawaii and French Polynesia (AP)
Zelenskiy tells UN Security Council that force is necessary to make peace; the Kremlin responds that the 'position is a fatal mistake' (RT)
Deep-Tech Talent War Escalates Between Europe and North America (PRN)
Deeptech Funding Sees A Dramatic 77% Drop In 2023 Compared To 2022 (BWD)

AI:

Adversarial attacks on AI models are rising (VB)
Justice Department pushes companies to consider AI risks (WSJ)
The FTC is cracking down on AI hype claims and deceptive schemes (FTC)
OpenAI to remove non-profit control and give Sam Altman equity (RT)
Mira Murati is departing as CTO of OpenAI after 6-1/2 years with the company (TV)
S&P Global Market Intelligence's annual Global Trends in AI report says storage, not GPUs, is the biggest challenge to AI (TR)
Kubernetes v1.31 released: enhanced security, stability, and AI/ML support (IQ)
Palantir expands Maven Smart System AI/ML capabilities to military services (BW)
NASA hosts Astrobiology AI/ML virtual seminar (AB)
LLMs may have a political bias (PP)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announces $120M fund for global AI education (TC)
Meta's Llama 3.2 launches with vision to rival OpenAI, Anthropic (VB)
The U.S. Army's AI strategy sprints forward with a 500-day plan (ND)
Michael Brown of Trail of Bits described AI/ML's impact on cybersecurity (SB)
Google spends $2.7B to get Noam Shazeer back to lead AI development (YF)
12 trends in AI for 2024 (TT)

XR:

Belgian startup VoxelSensors integrates AI into wearables for immersive experiences (RBJ)
Study shows VR may help pedestrians and cyclists avoid harmful pollutants (PHYS)
Augmented & Virtual Reality Market Expected to Surpass $677 Billion by 2031 As Revealed In New Report (WT)
Meta Connect 2024: Quest 3S, Project Orion, and much more (TV)
Blue chip companies finally see value in VR—for employee training (WSJ)
U.S. Army National Guardsmen adopt VR for training (MIL)
VR allows firefighters to learn procedures for real events, even if it can't replicate the heat, smoke, and stress of real training (LS)
Anduril teams up with Microsoft for the Army's headset, leveraging the former Oculus creator's expertise in XR (WI)
10 Areas where AR/VR can impact healthcare (HD)

Deal Flow:

Salesforce Ventures ups its AI fund to $1B, doubling it again (TC)
OpenAI Nears Largest VC Fundraising Round of All Time at $6.5B (PAY)
Harmonic, an AI platform developing mathematical superintelligence, raised a $75M Series A at a $325M valuation led by Sequoia (BW)
AxonJay raises €1.5M for deeptech AI assistant (TEU)
Desia, an AI system for investment professionals, raised a $3.3M pre-seed round led by Dig Ventures (TFN)
AI services firm Fractal Analytics is considering raising $500M at a $3.5B valuation in a Mumbai IPO (ET)
Vsim, founded by Nvidia alums, raises $24M for robotics simulation tech in a round led by EQT Ventures (TC)

Opportunities:

NASA is seeking small businesses to submit proposals for its Next Gen Scalable Data Engineering, Operations, and Informatic Support for Open Science to help the interagency maintain cutting-edge leadership in informatics, use of AI/ML, data science, and storage/management (SAM)
Air Force Research Laboratory is soliciting white papers under a BAA to support research in a number of computing areas including AI/ML, edge computing, nanocomputing, space computing, and more, with total funding approximated at $497.9M (SAM)
DoD's CDAO is seeking sources to support its Advana program building a competitive, adaptive, and responsive ecosystem of digital products and service providers around the DoD's data, analytics, and AI platform (SAM)
The Air Force's Air Mobility Command is seeking a VR welding simulator (SAM)