Despite some recent gains by law enforcement, ransomware remains a pernicious problem for companies large and small. Here's how eight experts advise preparing for ransomware attacks.
Today: Figma's Abhi Mathur explains how the company created its collaboration tool and overhauled its databases for scale, Red Hat outlines an open-source AI platform strategy, and the latest funding rounds in enterprise tech.
Figma's collaboration tools are a hit with designers thanks to its decision to take a page from the gaming software playbook and rebuild its databases for "infinite scale."
How all sides of a long-running product-strategy discussion inside AWS emerged at re:invent 2023, the fallout from ten days of chaos at OpenAI, and the latest funding rounds in enterprise tech.
Welcome to Runtime! Today: How all sides of a long-running product-strategy discussion inside AWS emerged at re:invent 2023, the fallout from ten days of chaos at OpenAI, and the latest funding rounds in enterprise tech.
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LAS VEGAS — AWS began life as a one-stop shop for the basic computing resources needed to build a business on the internet, and over the years — amid some internal debate — gradually started to manage those resources on behalf of late-arriving cloud customers who needed help before deciding to build a few full-blown SaaS applications for those customers. At re:Invent 2023, it drew a little bit from all of those strategies in hopes of jumpstarting its AI business.
In his third re:Invent keynote since taking the top job in 2021, CEO Adam Selipsky emphasized why he thinks AWS's investments in internal chip design set it apart from competitors, unveiled new managed services to help companies work with data, and introduced a comprehensive enterprise-focused chatbot called Amazon Q. He also announced that AWS will join Microsoft, Google, and others in offering indemnification to customers in the event of generative AI lawsuits, after ducking the question earlier this year at a press event in Seattle.
Just about everything in tech starts at the chip level, and AWS introduced new silicon for both general-purpose computing and AI.
The generative AI boom is entirely dependent on data, and as companies start to experiment with building their own AI models on their own data, they need new tools to manage that process.
The most interesting announcement of the day was AWS's answer to Microsoft's Copilot strategy; Q, either named after James Bonds' gadget wizard or the probably-fake anonymous leader of a cult of deranged lunatics, depending on your worldview.
It's been almost a year since OpenAI released the preview of ChatGPT right in the middle of re:Invent 2022, and AWS barely mentioned the concept of generative AI during that week. Obviously, this year has played out very differently, and this week's relentless focus on AI — with an entire AI-focused keynote from Swami Sivasubramanian still to come on Wednesday — shows how much the world changed.
One of the wildest weeks in recent tech history concluded over the holiday weekend with the return of OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman to his old job and the appointment of two new board members. While that seems to have been enough to quiet the employee revolt — and probably welcome by Microsoft executives who would have had to quickly spin up a separate AI research arm staffed by hundreds of expensive engineers — it's not clear that the dust has settled.
For one thing, Altman and comrade Greg Brockman, who will remain president of OpenAI, no longer have a seat on the board of the directors. Neither does Microsoft, although it's probably safe to assume it prefers dealing with Bret Taylor and Larry Summers rather than the group that put its $13-billion investment in OpenAI in jeopardy.
Microsoft retains access to OpenAI's technology, but still doesn't have the direct input that a major investor in almost any other startup would have over the direction of the company. And the new board plans to conduct some sort of investigation into whatever the hell just happened, which even if conducted with the lightest of touches could hang over the company for months to come.
Oxford Quantum Circuits raised $100 million in Series B funding and unveiled what it called "the world’s first enterprise-ready quantum platform," which feels like a bit of a stretch.
Pika landed $55 million in seed funding and launched its video editing and creation tool based on generative AI technology.
Alibaba reassigned several current executives to lead its cloud computing unit and shut down its quantum computing research after it canceled a planned IPO for the cloud division last week.
Police arrested five members of a ransomware gang operating out of Ukraine after an international investigation into attacks that resulted in "losses exceeding several hundred million euros."
Google's geothermal project in the Nevada desert is up and running, helping to produce power for two data centers in the region.
Vertiv now offers customers the option of using mass timber when building prefab data centers, which could have less of an impact on the environment than producing steel for those buildings.
Thanks for reading — see you Thursday!
Today: how international law enforcement agencies took down one of the most notorious ransomware operators, how two communities are dealing with a surge in data-center building, and the latest funding rounds in enterprise tech.
Today: Figma's Abhi Mathur explains how the company created its collaboration tool and overhauled its databases for scale, Red Hat outlines an open-source AI platform strategy, and the latest funding rounds in enterprise tech.
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