🖥️ Tech Futures #10

Happy Monday 👋

This week, Samsung and LG Electronics are integrating AI into customer service, and NetApp is enhancing its data infrastructure to support generative AI. South Korea partnered with the U.S. to establish a New York AI research institute, aiming for global AI leadership. Samsung and SK Hynix are set to mass-produce next-gen memory (CXL) by 2024, while OpenAI enhanced voice support for Korean and Japanese. Vodafone Idea secured a $3.6B deal to expand 4G and launch 5G across India. Meanwhile, UJET raised $76M, valuing it at $500M, and MetOx International secured $25M in Series B funding.

🚀 AI Integration

🤖 Samsung Electronics Service and LG Electronics are integrating AI into customer service. At the same time, Google Cloud rebranded its Contact Center AI to the Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI, integrating its Gemini 1.5 Flash technology.

☁️ South Korea and the U.S. collaborate on AI research. This establishes the Global AI Frontier Lab in New York to focus on advanced algorithms and healthcare applications. South Korea aims to become a global AI leader, launching the National AI Committee and an AI hub in Seoul for joint research.

🔄 NetApp is enhancing its data infrastructure to support generative AI. The company’s ONTAP system integrates AI capabilities, including Nvidia certification and a unified AI data pipeline. These updates offer Secure, scalable data management that optimizes AI projects across multi-cloud environments.

🛠️ OpenAI released an "Advanced Voice Mode" for ChatGPT. This enhances support for 50 languages, including Korean and Japanese. The update also offers more natural conversations and real-time emotion detection. The feature is available on paid versions and will soon expand to enterprise and educational platforms.

🌐 AI Collabs

🤝 CarDekho partnered with Girnar AI Innovations Lab to enhance customer support. This collaboration aims to revolutionize customer interactions by refining AI solutions to operate in multiple Indian languages through advanced AI-driven voice bots and chatbots.

💼 At the TECH4ALL Digital Inclusion Forum during Huawei Connect 2024. Huawei called for more partners to join its TECH4ALL initiative, aimed at promoting global digital inclusion. The initiative focuses on education, environment, health, and development.

✨ Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expanding the "Computer Express Link" (CXL) ecosystem. CXL, a next-gen memory technology, would support Both companies in their aim to mass-produce CXL products in 2024, aligning with Intel’s CXL-supporting CPUs.

📶 5G Expansion

⚙️ Iliad-owned Free launched 5G Standalone (SA) in France, claiming the largest 5G network with over 20,000 sites, covering 95% of the population. This move has intensified competition, prompting rivals like Orange to announce their own 5G SA services shortly thereafter.​

📞 Vodafone Idea signed $3.6B deals with Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung. This will expand 4G and launch 5G services across India. It aims to increase 4G coverage from 1.03B to 1.2B people and facilitate 5G rollout in key markets.

📱 Huawei and Du initiated the Middle East’s first indoor 5G-Advanced network using Three Carrier Aggregation (3CC) technology, achieving peak data rates of 5.1Gb/s. Enhancing indoor connectivity in venues like malls and airports while boosting Du’s 5G user experience.

💰 Tech Deals

💸 UJET, a San Francisco-based startup specializing in AI-powered cloud contact center solutions, secured $76M in funding to enhance customer service experiences through advanced generative AI technologies, enabling businesses to provide personalized, efficient interactions at scale.

💲 MetOx International, a producer of high-temperature superconducting wire for energy and medical applications, secured $25M in Series B funding to support its manufacturing scale-up and innovation in HTS solutions.

💴 TraqCheck, an enterprise tech startup, raised an undisclosed amount in a Pre-Series A funding round. The funding will be used to enhance its product offerings, expand its development team, and accelerate market penetration.

Thank you for reading. Have a great week ahead!
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