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Welcome, AI enthusiasts. |
GPUs, not cash, reign supreme in the AI gold rush — and one VC titan is quietly cornering the market. |
A16z is reportedly accumulating its own arsenal of advanced chips to help lure compute-hungry startups, redefining the funding landscape in the AI era. Let’s get into it… |
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In today’s AI rundown: |
A16z builds GPU arsenal to woo AI startups Anthropic’s Claude Artifacts sharing goes live Oura's AI coach enters the ring 6 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs More AI & tech news |
Read time: 3 minutes |
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A16Z |
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Image source: The Information |
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The Rundown: Venture capital powerhouse Andreesen Horowitz (a16z) is reportedly amassing a substantial arsenal of GPUs, including coveted Nvidia H100s, as part of the company’s strategy to attract and support AI startups. |
The details: |
A16z has already secured thousands of AI chips, with plans to expand to over 20,000 GPUs to rival the compute power of major AI labs. The initiative, called ‘Oxygen’, will allow the VC firm to to rent their chips to its portfolio companies at below-market rates in exchange for equity. Video generation platform Luma AI, an early participant in the program, cited GPU access as a key factor in choosing a16z as their lead investor. Over the last two years, a16z has made the second most generative AI-related investments of any venture firm, including funding for xAI, Mistral, OpenAI, and more. |
Why it matters: By offering startups access to scarce GPU resources, a16z is positioning itself as more than just a source of capital. This strategy could reshape the AI VC landscape by giving portfolio companies a significant edge — especially for smaller startups, given the pricey AI chips needed to compete. |
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Onboard’s features include: |
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ANTHROPIC |
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Image source: Anthropic |
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The Rundown: Anthropic just announced a new upgrade to its recently launched ‘Artifacts’ feature, allowing users to publish, share, and remix creations — alongside the launch of new prompt engineering tools in Claude’s developer Console. |
The details: |
The ‘Artifacts’ feature was introduced alongside Claude 3.5 Sonnet in June, allowing users to view, edit, and build in a real-time side panel workspace. Published Artifacts can now be shared and remixed by other users, opening up new avenues for collaborative learning. Anthropic also launched new developer tools in Console, including advanced testing, side-by-side output comparisons, and prompt generation assistance. |
Why it matters: Making Artifacts shareable is a small but mighty update — unlocking a new dimension of AI-assisted content creation that could revolutionize how we approach online education, knowledge sharing, and collaborative work. The ability to easily create and distribute AI-generated experiences opens up a world of possibilities. |
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THE RUNDOWN AI UNIVERSITY |
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The Rundown: With Claude’s new Artifact upgrades, we’re hosting a live workshop on an incredible real-world use case: How you can create shareable, interactive learning games from any content, screenshot, PDF, presentation, and more. |
Join us on Friday at 1 PM PST to: |
Learn how to access Claude 3.5 Sonnet for free and understand the best use cases of Artifacts. Transform your learning materials or screenshots into interactive projects for employee onboarding, internal training, exam preparation, and more. Share and publish your first Artifact seamlessly with a co-worker or friend to help them understand any topic better. |
If you’re a member of The Rundown University you can RSVP in the Upcoming Workshops space. |
If you’re not a member yet, you can still join the workshop with a 14-day free trial to The Rundown University. |
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OURA |
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Image source: Oura |
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The Rundown: Oura just unveiled a new AI-powered health coach called ‘Oura Advisor’, aiming to help users make sense and take action on the data from the company’s wearable rings. |
The details: |
Oura’s Advisor functions as a personalized wellness coach within the Oura app, offering contextualized insights and actionable advice from wearable data. The chatbot-like format provides guidance on sleep, activity, recovery, and more, and users can choose their communication style (supportive, mentoring, or goal-oriented). A ‘Memory’ function also allows users to input personal health context, which the AI will factor in when providing insights. Samsung is set to launch its rival Galaxy Ring at today’s ‘Unpacked’ event, with similar AI integrations expected. |
Why it matters: Just yesterday we highlighted OpenAI and Thrive’s new AI-powered health coach, saying it will likely face some stiff competition. Days later, both Oura and Samsung are already set to launch rival products. This is likely just the start of the AI-driven health race to come. |
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Elon Musk revealed that Grok 2 will likely be ready for release next month, with xAI also beginning training on a 100k H100 system that will be the ‘most powerful training cluster in the world by a large margin.’ |
OpenAI’s move to block API traffic from restricted areas like China went into effect on Tuesday, though access is reportedly still accessible via Microsoft Azure. |
AI video startup Captions raised $60M in a Series C funding led by Index Ventures and investors including actor Jared Leto, bringing the company’s valuation to $500M. |
Elon Musk also confirmed that xAI ended discussions with Oracle on a potential $10B AI server deal and will instead build the cluster internally in Memphis, TN. |
Roblox published new research on the company’s use of machine learning to combat voice abuse on the platform, utilizing a model for real-time safety that led to significant decreases severe reports and violations. |
AI gaming startup Volley announced a new $55M series C funding round, aiming to accelerate the development of new voice-controlled, AI-powered games for Alexa devices, TVs, and mobile devices. |
The Republican National Committee released the GOP platform for the 2024 election, saying if elected the party will repeal President Biden’s AI Executive Order and support AI ‘rooted in free speech and human flourishing’. |
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