🖥️ Tech Futures #2

Happy Monday 👋

Particle’s new Tachyon single-board computer, priced at $149, integrates Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, AI, 5G, and Wi-Fi 6E, advancing edge computing and AI capabilities. Nvidia announces new services to boost humanoid robot development, while Viettel deploys the world’s first Open RAN 5G base station in Vietnam, enhancing tech autonomy and reducing costs. OPPO and Ericsson sign a global patent cross-licensing agreement. TSMC’s $10.82B European plant, Amkor’s up to $400M funding for advanced packaging, LG’s expanded chip development, and SK Hynix’s $6.8B DRAM plant highlight major semiconductor investments. Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI unveil new AI tools, with Altana, Canva, and other startups securing significant funding.

🌐 Hardware and Networking

🖥️ Particle's unveils Tachyon single-board computer, priced at $149. It features Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor, AI acceleration, 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, and Linux-based Ubuntu OS. It aims to democratize advanced tech, making it accessible for diverse applications and pushing edge computing and AI integration boundaries.

🤖 Nvidia boosts global humanoid robot development with new services. This includes NIM microservices, Osmo orchestration for robotics, and AI-enabled teleoperation workflows. Announced by CEO Jensen Huang at Siggraph, these tools aim to enhance robot simulation, learning, and training.

📡 Viettel deployed the first 5G base station with Open RAN. The standards boost 5G development in Vietnam. This enhances tech autonomy, cuts costs, opens opportunities for local businesses and meets new 5G demands, demonstrating Open RAN’s commercial viability.

🛰️ OPPO and Ericsson  signed a global cooperation agreement. It covers patent cross-licenses, technical cooperation, and market expansion. Standard-essential patents (SEPs) pertaining to cellular communication technologies, such as 5G, are covered by the global cross license.

🖥️ Semiconductors

💽 TSMC opens its first European plant, the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. ESMC is set to operate by late 2027, this $10.82B project includes top investors like Infineon, Robert Bosch, and NXP.

📱 The Department of Commerce is providing Amkor Technology up to $400M in funding under the CHIPS and Science Act for its $2B advanced packaging project in Arizona. This project aims to improve supply chain security, create thousands of jobs, and support key technologies like autonomous vehicles and 5G/6G smartphones.

🏭 LG Electronics is expanding in-house chip development. The ongoing recruitment targets master’s and doctorate holders to develop next-gen computing platforms. Additionally, LG is hiring for its semiconductor quality management center until August 15. The company aims to become fabless, focusing on home appliances and automotive chip development.

⚙️ SK Hynix will invest $6.8B in a new Yongin plant. This is set to complete by May 2027, producing next-gen DRAMs. They're also commercializing 9.6 Gbps LP DDR5T DRAM, compatible with Snapdragon 8 Gen3.

📝 The U.S. is expected to unveil new semiconductor control measures next month. This will potentially prevent Samsung and SK Hynix from supplying high-bandwidth memory to Chinese companies, impacting their use of U.S. design software and equipment.

🤖 AI and LLM

💡 Microsoft introduced free fine-tuning for its 3 billion parameter Phi-3 model. It is designed for coding, reasoning, and general knowledge. Despite being smaller, Phi-3 performs on par with OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, offering a low-cost, enterprise-grade AI solution.

🔍 Meta's Segment Anything 2 (SA2) was unveiled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It extends the model's segmentation capabilities to video, enhancing efficiency and usability. SA2 is open and free, with a large annotated database of 50,000 videos for training.

💻 OpenAI introduced SearchGPT, an AI-driven search engine integrating real-time web information. This aims to compete with Google's dominance. Currently, in user testing, it promises a conversational search experience similar to ChatGPT but with up-to-date information and reference links.

💰 Deals of the Week

🔄 Altana, a value chain management system company, raised $200M in Series C funding to expedite product development, utilizing AI-driven workflows on its data platform and to facilitate collaboration across various sectors for security.

🧠 Gloo, a boulder-based technology platform, raised $110M in growth capital to accelerate development of the platform.

🔗 Thumbtack, a San Francisco-based technology company, raised $75M in debt funding to help home organizing and help homeowners move past procrastination and get more done.

🎨 Canva,  a graphic design platform, has acquired Leonardo.ai, a startup focused on generative AI art content and research, for an undisclosed amount to double down on AI-powered design tools.

📱 OrangeKloud, an enterprise mobile solution enabler, raised $13.1M in an IPO to improve innovative solutions that meet the needs of today’s enterprises.

Thank you for reading. Have a great week ahead!
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