This week brought yet another big shakeup at OpenAI, as Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and others quit.
But CEO Sam Altman seems to be cementing his control. And Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in a memo that OpenAI’s oversubscribed (no, really?) funding at a $150 billion valuation is set to close next week. Still, it sure looks like Altman’s got a mess to clean up.
Oh, and by the way, Altman says AI superintelligence is not far away and everything will pretty much be fine. Just a little matter of those big new AI models that are still self-assuredly wrong far too often.
NetApp is aiming to become a prime data management platform for AI, but it’s far from alone in that ambition. Still, AI is a money spigot for a lot of enterprise companies, so why not go for it? Just ask Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.
Meantime, the leaders in generative AI continue to command big fundings and valuations, the latest being Anthropic with its reported $40 billion valuation. Google also added more AI capabilities as it appears to gather customer momentum. But open-source AI models are getting better and better, and this week brought a new one from the Allen Institute for AI and more new Llama models from Meta.
Meta debuted a new $300 Meta Quest headset that looks quite capable and would seem to be the consumer choice for VR, and also announced it’s close to AR glasses that look pretty darn slick. It may turn out that they’re coming just as AI makes them useful to the masses, so CEO Mark Zuckerberg potentially could have the last laugh on his notoriously money-losing bet on mixed reality.
On the legal and regulatory front, Google filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in the EU over software licensing. Some things never change. Supermicro also got some unwanted attention from the Justice Department, perhaps over accounting issues, and its stock dropped 12% Thursday on the news.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is busy these days. Apollo may make a $5 billion investment in the struggling chipmaker, which may not sound like much, but it needs all the help it can get. And it’s reportedly set to get more from the U.S. government.
Smartsheet is going private in an $8.4 billion deal, and you can bet it won’t be the last software-as-a-service provider going that route. The delayed impact of the end of zero interest rates could send a lot more SaaS companies scurrying for cover.
Looking ahead, next week’s events include VAST Data Cosmos, where we’ll hear more about the hot startup’s ambitions for a data operating system, and Anyscale Ray Summit, where we’ll find out more about the progress of the AI framework Ray.
SiliconANGLE and theCUBE Research analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante discuss this and other news in more detail on this week’s theCUBE Pod, out late Friday on YouTube. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive, Breaking Analysis, coming this weekend.
Here’s all the big enterprise and related tech news from SiliconANGLE and beyond:
AI and data: The OpenAI drama continues
Headline news and analysis
Sam Altman says superintelligence is on the way, and the future is bright
Open AI CTO Mira Murati quits, the latest in a string of executive departures, as company restructures to create a for-profit entity
Study: Even as larger AI models improve, answering more questions leads to more wrong answers
Google Paid $2.7 Billion to Bring Back an AI Genius Who Quit in Frustration (per the WSJ). Hard to believe one person, no matter how brilliant, is worth paying $2.7 billion for, so it’s fair to assume there’s more at work here.
NetApp makes a play in AI: NetApp CEO George Kurian on how data management is key to unlocking AI potential All the announcements from its Insight conference: NetApp outlines its vision of an intelligent data infrastructure for generative AI projects
FTC cracks down on misleading AI-powered business schemes in new initiative
Gartner’s Ian Cox weighs in on How AI can accelerate the IT strategy creation process – within limits
Money matters
Anthropic reportedly in early talks to raise new funding on up to $40B valuation
Chip giant Nvidia acquires OctoAI, a Seattle startup that helps companies run AI models (per Geekwire)
Contact center-as-a-service startup Ujet raises $76M to accelerate generative AI development
Harmonic raises $75M to create AI with mathematical superintelligence and eliminate hallucinations
Nurix AI raises $27.5M to scale development of custom enterprise AI agents
DeepOpinion raises €11 million to assist enterprise businesses with AI agents
Zenlytic raises $9M to enable self-serve business intelligence with an AI-powered data analyst
Open-source data orchestration platform Kestra raises $8M
New models and services
Google unveils new generative AI innovations for customer engagement and Gemini in Workspace
Allen Institute for AI releases open-source Molmo language model series
Cloudflare debuts tools for website owners to charge AI companies that scrape their content
HP applies AI to fix the most maddening printing problem as it debuts new AI PCs
Google Labs adds video and audio input to AI-powered note-taking assistant NotebookLM
Startup Ensemble gets $3.3M in funding to fix data quality issues with Dark Matter
Airtable’s new updates simplify the creation of no-code apps with integrated generative AI
Startup Redbird launches AI-powered data analytics platform
Tabnine introduces AI agents that generate and validate code from Jira issues
Data Dynamics introduces AI-powered self-service software for comprehensive data governance
Hyperscience expands Hypercell platform to boost AI-powered automation for back-office processes
Mozilla kicks off Builders accelerator program for ‘local AI’ startups
Case study: How the PGA TOUR Is using generative AI to change the golf fan’s experience
Around the enterprise: Google v. Microsoft
Policy
Google files EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft over software licensing
Supermicro shares drop on reported Justice Department probe
Money matters
Report: Intel mulls $5B investment offer from private equity firm Apollo
And a little help from the government too: Intel and US to finalize $8.5 bln in chips funding by year-end, FT reports Which is good, since the vultures keep circling: Arm is rebuffed by Intel after inquiring about acquiring product unit (per Bloomberg)
Work management software provider Smartsheet to be taken private in $8.4B deal
Micron’s stock surges as AI companies scramble for high-bandwidth memory chips
Salesforce buys Israeli startup Zoomin to feed more data to its AI agents
Infrastructure software firm Progress Software topped high end of earnings estimates and said it expects to close ShareFile acquisition by end of November
Whatfix raises $125M to expand global reach and enhance its digital adoption platform
Supabase, the Postgres-based application development platform, raises $80M in funding
Reframe launches with $5M to address application silos and improve digital collaboration
Infrastructure-as-code startup Bluebricks lands $4.5M to challenge HashiCorp’s Terraform
New products and services
Harness unveils AI code and DevOps agents to accelerate its software delivery platform
Pure Storage offers move-less data tiering and VM optimization service
Broadcom debuts Sian2 chip for powering AI clusters’ optical networks
Broadcom to develop high-speed cable internet chips with Charter and Comcast
Intel introduces top-end Xeon 6900P server processors with up to 128 cores
Intel’s Altera shares new details about upcoming Agilex 3 chips
Ephos wants to shatter the market for AI and quantum chips with a new design based on glass (per TechCrunch)
Box makes company documents easier to organize and find with Box Hubs
Arista Networks doubles down on CloudVision
Intermedia to gain from NEC’s exit from cloud communications
A look ahead to AWS re:Invent 😂
Cyber beat
John Furrier sums up Google Mandiant’s mWISE event last week: Cybersecurity’s new battleground: strategic imperatives and emerging threats And theCUBE distills insights from the event: Three insights you might have missed from mWISE 2024
Privacy-focused Tails operating system merges with The Tor Project
Attack & response
Necro malware infects 11M+ Android devices via Google Play apps
MoneyGram services disrupted by likely ransomware attack, global transactions affected
Cofense report reveals new phishing scam using TikTok URLs to target Microsoft 365 credentials
Critical flaws in Kia’s remote system could have allowed hackers to control vehicles
Money matters
Commvault acquires AWS data protection startup Clumio
Wiz in talks to sell shares at valuation as high as $20B after walking away from Google acquisition talks (per Bloomberg)
Security automation platform provider Torq raises $70M to boost expansion and AI integration
Tamnoon raises $12M to advance managed cloud security remediation
DefectDojo secures $7M to expand security automation platform
BlackBerry reports second-quarter earnings and revenue beats
New services
Exclusive: ConductorOne automates access controls for employees on the move
Okta expands Auth0 capabilities to enhance scalability and security for developers
Cloudflare makes key security tools free to help combat modern threats
Infoblox launches Universal DDI Suite to simplify multicloud network management And a deeper analysis of the new features from Zeus Kerravala: Analysis: Infoblox looks to change the ops game with Universal DDI Product Suite
Elsewhere in tech: Meta might have a mixed reality winner
Meta unveils new mixed reality Quest 3S headset, updated AI models and next-gen AR glasses
Breaking Analysis: David Moschella on six technology myths and the Big Tech-lash
US moves to ban import of certain connected vehicle parts from China and Russia
More antitrust action: DOJ sues Visa for locking out rival payment platforms
Free speech row erupts over X suspending journalist who published JD Vance dossier
X releases first transparency report since Elon Musk took over the platform
Celestia Foundation nabs $100M for modular blockchain network
Comings and goings
Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy appointed his Neeva co-founder, Vivek Raghunathan, to oversee the company’s engineers (per The Information)
Analytics firm ThoughtSpot appointed former Salesforce EVP Ketan Karkhanis CEO.
Cybersecurity firm Cyderes said founder and CEO Robert Herjavec will step down. Chris Schueler will take over Oct. 1.
Software-defined manufacturing firm Bright Machines appointed former Meraki and Cisco executive Chris Stori to be CEO.
Security compliance unicorn Drata lays off 9% of its workforce (per TechCrunch)
What’s next
Oct. 1: VAST Data Cosmos: TheCUBE will have its own interviews with the co-founders, CEO Renen Hallak and Jeff Denworth, and provide analysis from theCUBE Research.
Oct. 1: Anyscale Ray Summit, San Francisco: TheCUBE will be there.