Inflection AI raises US$1.3B through funding round led by NVIDIA and Microsoft
The California startup has developed one of the world's most advanced LLMs: Pi
Rowan Dunne
The California-based tech startup Inflection AI announced Thursday that it had raised US$1.3 billion to continue the development of its large language model chatbot: Pi (Personal intelligence).
The money was obtained through a funding round led by NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) and the tech billionaires Reid Hoffman, Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates. Inflection AI is building the world’s largest AI cluster in partnership with NVIDIA and the cloud provider CoreWeave.
The company says the LLM it released in May is intended to be a supportive and helpful virtual friend that can provide useful advice. Inflection thinks the cluster of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) used for Pi constitutes one of the top supercomputers in the entire world and the largest AI cluster on Earth.
“A powerful benefit of the AI revolution is the ability to use natural, conversational language to interact with supercomputers to simplify aspects of our everyday lives,” said NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang.
“Personal AI is going to be the most transformational tool of our lifetimes. We’re excited to collaborate with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and CoreWeave as well as Eric, Bill and many others to bring this vision to life,” said Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI. Suleyman was a co-founder of Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOGL) AI company DeepMind.
So much fun talking with you, @ScottWapnerCNBC AI really will be the greatest leap forward in productivity in our lifetimes! @CNBCClosingBell
Inflection AI announcing today it secured $1.3B in its latest round of funding, led by #Microsoft and new investor #Nvidia CEO and co-founder @mustafasuleymn on what's next for the company:
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DeepMind’s Chief Business Officer Colin Murdoch also told media on Thursday that AI had vast and incredible potential but that it needed to be developed in a responsible manner.
“What we want to make sure of is that we are doing this in a way that enables society to benefit from the incredible potential of this technology, but the exceptional promise does need exceptional care, which is why we have to act responsibly and pioneer responsibly,” said Murdoch.
In Canada, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim also urged the provincial government to regulate the development of AI within the public sector in a report released earlier this month.
The news follows another California software company, Databricks, inking an agreement to acquire the AI startup MosaicML on Monday for a sum of US$1.3 billion as well.
rowan@mugglehead.com
