Hard Numbers: Perplexity’s fundraising drive, CoreWeave prepares for an IPO, Next stop: India, Aardvark will forecast the weather, Bowdoin’s big AI gift
26 billion: CoreWeave, which is expected to start trading next Friday on the Nasdaq stock exchange, updated its prospectus on Thursday to disclose that it’s targeting up to a $26 billion valuation from its initial public offering. The Nvidia-backed company is a New Jersey-based cloud computing company that specializes in offering infrastructure to AI developers.
85: OpenAI and Meta are seeking partnerships with India’s Reliance Industries to expand their AI presence in the subcontinent, according to a report in The Information published Saturday. OpenAI, in particular, has floated the idea of distributing ChatGPT through Reliance’s wireless carrier, Jio, and even cutting subscription prices up to 85% for Indian customers.
10: Researchers have developed an AI weather prediction system called “Aardvark Weather,” which operates thousands of times more efficiently than conventional forecasting methods. This breakthrough from the University of Cambridge, Alan Turing Institute, Microsoft Research, and ECMWF can run on a desktop computer instead of supercomputers and uses just 10% of the input data that existing systems need. Aardvark is currently a research model and not yet available for public use.
50 million: Billionaire Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, announced a donation to his alma mater, Bowdoin College, to the tune of $50 million on Monday. It’s a large gift for the small liberal arts college in Maine — the largest since its founding in 1794, according to the New York Times. Hastings said he wants Bowdoin to use the money to become a leader in studying the risks of AI and ethical questions associated with the technology.