AI

Elon Musk’s xAI lands $6B in new cash to fuel AI ambitions

AI /

Updated December 25, 12:21 p.m. Pacific: Added details of xAI’s valuation and Kingdom Holdings’ contribution. xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has raised $6 billion in a Series C financing round. The company announced this week that Andreessen Horowitz , Blackrock, Fidelity, Lightspeed, MGX, Morgan Stanley, OIA, QIA, Sequoia Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Nvidia, […]

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Google is using Anthropic’s Claude to improve its Gemini AI

AI /

Contractors working to improve Google’s Gemini AI are comparing its answers against outputs produced by Anthropic’s competitor model Claude, according to internal correspondence seen by TechCrunch.  Google would not say, when reached by TechCrunch for comment, if it had obtained permission for its use of Claude in testing against Gemini. As tech companies race to

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Elon Musk’s xAI lands $6B in new cash to fuel AI ambitions

Fundraising /

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has raised $6 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Investors gave a minimum of $77,593, per the filing (97 participated, but the document doesn’t reveal their identities). xAI later announced (confirming some earlier reporting) that Andreessen Horowitz , Blackrock, Fidelity, Kingdom Holdings,

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‘Genius Girl’ goes from inspiring a Korean TV show character to raising a $100 million AI fund

Venture /

On the weekend, as most students were stumbling back from the bars, Songyee Yoon was rushing across her South Korean campus. Around dinner time, she would run some programs on her college’s supercomputer and then, as the computer chugged through her program, she’d wait sleepless in her dorm. “I woke up at like 2 am,

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Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500M funding round

Fundraising /

AI-powered search engine Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar, reports that the round was led by Institutional Venture Partners, and that it closed earlier in December. In an email to TechCrunch, a Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment. The mammoth tranche comes as

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TuSimple pivot from self-driving to AI animation is complete with CreateAI rebrand

Gaming /

TuSimple has completed its pivot away from autonomous trucking to AI animation and gaming with a rebrand. The company shall henceforth be known as CreateAI.  The rebrand comes as TuSimple is embroiled in controversy over the company’s plans to move its remaining U.S. assets to China to fund the new business, which it initially announced

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