Lifeboat Foundation

Neuralink, the Elon Musk-founded company developing implantable chips that can read brain waves, has raised an additional $43 million in venture capital, according to a filing with the SEC.

The filing published this week shows the company increased its previous tranche, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, from $280 million to $323 million in early August. Thirty-two investors participated, according to the filing.

Neuralink hasn’t disclosed its valuation recently. But in June, Reuters reported that the company was valued at about $5 billion after privately-executed stock trades.

A stuttering economy, rampant inflation and a handful of mass layoffs later, it seems the tables may be turning.

According to Professor Jeremy Siegel, emeritus professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, staff looking over their shoulders at laid off peers may have actually proved useful to the economy.

Volocopter plans to focus on cities expediting infrastructure, routes, regulations, and digital networks, highlighting global economic uncertainties and the crucial role of local partners.

Volocopter.

The eagerly anticipated initiative has been paused due to challenges in securing local partners willing to share the financial responsibility for the cutting-edge technology involved.

Continue reading “Volocopter stalls air taxi launch amid funding woes in Singapore” »

Humankind on the verge of evolutionary traps, a new study: …For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large.

For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large. They find that humankind risks getting stuck in 14 evolutionary dead ends, ranging from global climate tipping points to misaligned artificial intelligence, chemical pollution, and accelerating infectious diseases.

The evolution of humankind has been an extraordinary success story. But the Anthropocene—the proposed geological epoch shaped by us humans—is showing more and more cracks. Multiple global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, food insecurity, financial crises, and conflicts have started to occur simultaneously in something which scientists refer to as a polycrisis.

Continue reading “New research maps 14 potential evolutionary dead ends for humanity and ways to avoid them” »

Investors are always looking for the next great breakthrough in technology. As computers are indispensable tools for managing everything from finance to healthcare and smart cities, it only makes sense to look at the next stage of development and A-rated quantum computing stocks.

Quantum computing is still in its early stages, but companies are already making inroads. Zapata surveyed executives at 300 companies with revenues of $250 million and computing budgets over $1 million. Of those, over two-thirds spent more than $1 million annually to develop quantum computing applications.

Quantum computer stocks represent companies trying to revolutionize cryptography, optimization, drug discovery and artificial intelligence. It holds promise for solving complex problems currently infeasible for classical computers due to their exponential time requirements.

OpenAI plans to secure further financial backing from its biggest investor Microsoft as the ChatGPT maker’s chief executive Sam Altman pushes ahead with his vision to create artificial general intelligence—computer software as intelligent as humans.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Altman said his company’s partnership with Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella was “working really well” and that he expected “to raise a lot more over time” from the tech giant among other investors, to keep up with the punishing costs of building more sophisticated AI models.

Continue reading “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wants to build AI ‘superintelligence’” »

Eleven months after sharing plans to develop and implement a new series of EV charging hubs across North America, Mercedes-Benz, with the help of ChargePoint, has opened its very first location in the US, complete with a driver lounge and powered using 100% renewable energy.

This past January, Mercedes-Benz announced plans for the new network of fast charging hubs during a press conference at CES alongside its new partner, ChargePoint.

At the time, we learned that both MN8 Energy and Mercedes-Benz would finance and jointly operate the network of over 400 planned charging hubs, becoming home to over 2,500 ChargePoint DC fast charging piles across the US and Canada.

Warren Buffett, the venerated investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is set to amass over $6 billion in dividend income in the coming year, with a significant portion of this windfall emanating from just three stocks. This substantial income stream underscores the effectiveness of Buffett’s investment strategy, one that favors profitability and long-term value.

Buffett’s predilection for dividend-bearing stocks isn’t just a matter of preference; it’s a testament to his investment acumen. Among his top dividend earners, Bank of America Corp BAC stands out, with expected dividend earnings of approximately $991.5 million. A leading financial institution, BofA has thrived in the higher interest rate environment, seeing a substantial increase in its net-interest income.

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Fine-tuning large language models (LLM) has become an important tool for businesses seeking to tailor AI capabilities to niche tasks and personalized user experiences. But fine-tuning usually comes with steep computational and financial overhead, keeping its use limited for enterprises with limited resources.

To solve these challenges, researchers have created algorithms and techniques that cut the cost of fine-tuning LLMs and running fine-tuned models. The latest of these techniques is S-LoRA, a collaborative effort between researchers at Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley (UC Berkeley).