Artificial Intelligence: 3 Companies to Watch

November 21, 2023

In the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a myriad of forward-thinking companies are pioneering technologies that promise to transform industries and redefine human-machine interactions. As AI continues to evolve at a breathtaking pace, there is a wealth of emerging players making their mark on the industry.

This article highlights three such groundbreaking businesses, uncovering their visionary endeavours, novel AI solutions, and the transformative potential they harness. From advanced chatbot systems to large language models, join us on this insightful journey as we spotlight the remarkable accomplishments of these companies.

Anthropic

Anthropic, an AI-focused start-up, has reportedly confirmed $2 billion in funding to be invested by tech giant Google. This news emerges after Amazon’s recent $4 billion investment in the two-year-old firm. Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude, stands as a rival to Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, providing users with relevant answers to their inquiries. This financing marks the latest substantial investment in a company that is at the forefront of creating foundational models which leverage extensive data and serve as the cornerstone for a range of AI applications.

Claude is rooted in the company’s cutting-edge AI system training research and is currently accessible in the U.S. and U.K. In July, the company unveiled Claude 2, boasting enhanced functionality, extended replies, better API accessibility, and a fresh user-friendly website. Claude is engineered to shine across varied tasks, spanning intricate conversations, innovative content creation, deep reasoning, and precise guidance, all the while ensuring consistency and dependability.

Upon receiving $4 billion dollars in funding from Amazon, Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic expressed how “Claude has seen significant organic adoption from AWS customers” and how the company “can unlock new possibilities for organisations of all sizes” by significantly expanding their partnership with Amazon and other investors.

Inflection

A mere two months following the debut of their chatbot, Pi, AI startup Inflection AI, led by CEO Mustafa Suleyman, raised $1.3 billion in funding in June 2023. Prominent tech figures, including Microsoft, Nvidia, and three of tech’s most influential billionaires led the investment in the startup founded in early 2022. Key personal investors include LinkedIn’s co-founder Reid Hoffman, Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates, and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, with Nvidia standing as the sole new investor among the group.

With the influx of new funds, Inflection aims to enhance its computational prowess and further refine Pi. This bot is designed to engage in interactive dialogues with users, enabling deeper inquiries and more insightful responses. Demand for the chatbot is growing rapidly  according to Suleyman, with Pi “seeing huge engagement” as new features are added.

Earlier in June, Inflection introduced the model behind Pi, claiming it possesses computing power comparable to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to Suleyman, this model is one of the smaller ones they’ve developed, hinting at grander versions in the pipeline. On the near horizon, they also plan to release an API, allowing select partners to cultivate their own conversational AI systems.

Baichuan AI

Established in April 2023 by Wang Xiaochuan, the founder of the internet search engine Sogou, the Chinese startup Baichuan quickly became one of the first firms to receive Beijing’s green light for a public chatbot rollout in August. Since its inception, Baichuan has unveiled four open-source large language models (LLM) and is currently in the process of creating two unique platforms. Baichuan raised $300 million from investors including Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent on May 1st 2023, following an initial $50 million angel round. Bloomberg now values the company at over $1 billion.

Baichuan employs over 170 people, more than 80% of which are R&D professionals. Their team is led by top AI talents who previously worked at companies such as Google, Tencent, Baidu, Huawei, Microsoft and TikTok-owner ByteDance.

The startup reports that two of its open-source models have garnered over six million downloads. Positioned as a front-runner among Chinese companies in the generative AI space, Baichuan stands as a formidable contender against U.S. tech heavyweights like Microsoft and OpenAI.

Published on 21-11-2023