In today's rapidly advancing world of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Microsoft and BlackRock have taken a significant step forward. The two giants announced the joint launch of a fund exceeding $30 billion, focusing on AI infrastructure investment, primarily covering data centers and energy projects. This major announcement was made on Tuesday and immediately generated a tremendous response in the global tech and finance circles. With the continuous advancement of AI technology, particularly the widespread application of deep learning and large-scale data processing models, the demand for computing power has shown explosive growth.

Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Wang Jian shared his in-depth thoughts on AI, AI+, and AI infrastructure at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Bund Conference. He emphasized that AI+ is not merely a simple integration of AI and industry, but rather the integration of data, models, and computing power, with cloud computing serving as the infrastructure of the AI era. Wang Jian pointed out that although artificial intelligence has a long history, it has only truly impacted industries for the past 7 years, with the critical turning point being Google’s introduction of the Transformer in 2017. Under the logic of AI+, ChatGPT is not just an application, but a broader application platform.

Sam Altman is advancing a large-scale global AI infrastructure plan aimed at supporting AI development by establishing data centers in multiple U.S. states, enhancing energy supply, and boosting semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. The plan is expected to cost several billion dollars, seeking support from the U.S. government, and aims to form a coalition of global investors. Investors from Canada, South Korea, Japan, and the UAE are also considering participation. OpenAI is undergoing a new round of funding, targeting to raise several billion dollars, aiming to increase its valuation to $100 billion.

Wuwen Chip Quasar, an AI startup established just over a year ago, recently secured nearly 500 million in Series A financing, bringing its total financing to over 1 billion, making it the king of financing in the AI infrastructure sector. Its shareholders include state-owned assets, local funds, and notable venture capital institutions such as Shunwei Capital and Dacheng Financial Intelligence. One of the founders, Wang Yu, is the head of the Department of Electronics at Tsinghua University, and many team members have Tsinghua backgrounds with rich research experience. In 2016, DeepInsight Technology, incubated by Tsinghua NICS-EFC Laboratory, was acquired by Xilinx for 300 million.

AI infrastructure startup 'Wu Wen Xin Qiong' announced the completion of nearly 500 million Yuan in Series A financing, setting the record for the largest single financing amount for domestic AI Infra startups. This round was co-led by the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, and Hongtai Fund, with participation from strategic investors including Lenovo Capital, Xiaomi, and Softcom. The funds will primarily be used to enhance talent acquisition, deepen technology research and development, drive product commercialization, and strengthen ecosystem collaboration. 'Wu Wen Xin Qiong' was established just 16 months ago.

On August 23, 2024, the well-known Chinese artificial intelligence company Yunzhisheng announced the launch of its latest research and development achievement – the Shanhai Multimodal Large Model in Beijing. The Shanhai Multimodal Large Model is part of Yunzhisheng's Atlas AI infrastructure, capable of receiving and processing inputs from various modalities, including text, audio, and images, and generating any combination of text, audio, and image outputs in real-time. This capability enables the Shanhai model to not only conduct efficient voice interactions but also provide a conversational experience that is close to natural human dialogue.

AMD has acquired AI infrastructure company ZT Systems for $4.9 billion, aiming to accelerate the market adoption of its Instinct data center chips. ZT Systems, a partner of Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, provides customized computing infrastructure, making this acquisition a significant strategic move for AMD. Through this deal, AMD not only gains approximately 1,000 engineers but also accelerates the deployment of AI solutions, with plans to launch the new MI350 chip in 2025 to compete with Nvidia.

Oracle deepens its partnership with Nvidia by integrating Nvidia L40S and H100 Tensor Core GPUs into its cloud infrastructure (OCI) to provide AI acceleration services. The L40S GPU serves as a general-purpose AI accelerator suitable for inference, small model training, and graphics-intensive applications. The addition of the H100 GPU offers more flexibility for businesses of various sizes to leverage AI capabilities. Oracle has also optimized it....

On July 9th, Musk announced that his artificial intelligence company xAI is building a supercomputer with 100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, expected to be delivered and begin training by the end of this month. This move marks the termination of xAI's negotiations with Oracle to expand the existing agreement and rent more NVIDIA chips. Musk emphasized that this will become "the most powerful training cluster globally with a significant lead." He said that the core competitive edge of xAI lies in speed, "

American software giant Microsoft plans to invest $2.1 billion over the next two years to expand its artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure in Spain. This move comes after Microsoft's announcement of a €3.2 billion specialized investment in artificial intelligence in Germany. Microsoft has not yet responded with details regarding the investment in Spain. This investment plan will strengthen Microsoft's influence in the European AI sector and support Spain's digital transformation.

AWS will introduce NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips for the first time, providing scalable AI computing in the cloud. The collaboration includes hosting the first NVIDIA DGX Cloud with GH200 NVL32 on AWS, accelerating generative AI and language model training. New Amazon EC2 instances will be launched, including the P5e instance for generative AI and G6 and G6e instances suitable for various applications. The collaboration also involves software development, including NV

Social media giant Meta has announced the disbandment of its team responsible for overseeing artificial intelligence projects, with members transitioning to the generative AI and AI infrastructure teams. Many members of Meta's AI regulatory team have moved to the company's generative AI product team, while some have joined the AI infrastructure team. This restructuring is aimed at keeping pace with the AI boom, as many tech companies are investing in machine learning development.

Bit Digital is rapidly expanding its business into the AI infrastructure sector by signing agreements to provide cloud-based GPU resources for clients at its data centers. The profit margins in artificial intelligence are higher, which can provide stable revenue for the company's core business. The company is purchasing high-performance computing equipment to deploy at data centers and provide services to AI firms, transitioning to AI business to diversify Bit Digital's revenue sources.

SK Telecom has announced its 'AI Pyramid Strategy' aimed at accelerating innovation with a focus on three key areas: AI infrastructure, AI transformation, and AI services. This strategy will include energy-efficient solutions such as immersion cooling systems and hydrogen fuel cells, and will expand into AI hosting services. SK Telecom also plans to launch a personal AI assistant service named 'A.', which will connect various AI services to enhance customer communication experiences and gradually evolve into a global personal AI assistant service. The company anticipates a significant increase in AI-related investments over the next five years, accelerating its journey to become a global AI powerhouse.

Hugging Face raised $235 million in funding, reaching a valuation of $4.5 billion. Genesis Therapeutics secured $200 million in funding, focused on AI-driven drug design. AI21 Labs completed a $155 million Series C funding, with a valuation of $1.4 billion. Anthropic received $100 million in funding to collaborate with SKT on building custom large models. Modular raised $100 million, aiming to provide AI solutions.