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.

Salesforce has acquired the AI voice assistant startup Tenyx to enhance the interactivity of its customer service system and meet user needs through a natural and smooth conversational experience. Tenyx's technology has been applied in various fields such as e-commerce, healthcare, and hospitality, and will become an essential part of Salesforce's customer service system. The transaction is expected to be completed by October 31, 2024, with the Tenyx team joining Salesforce to continue product development. The acquisition aims to leverage AI fully.

Alibaba's cloud computing division has released the new AI model Qwen2-VL, which possesses strong capabilities to understand visual content. It can analyze videos lasting up to 20 minutes in real-time, summarize the video content, answer related questions, and provide online chat support. In third-party benchmark tests, Qwen2-VL surpassed several metrics including Meta's Llama 3.1, OpenAI's GPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku, and Google's Gemini 1.5 Flash.

Amidst the widespread adoption of cloud computing and SaaS in the digital transformation of enterprises, startup Opkey has announced the completion of a $47 million Series B funding round, aimed at accelerating the development of its AI-driven ERP testing platform. Developed by Pankaj Goel and his team, the platform addresses functionality issues that may arise from frequent updates to ERP systems. Opkey has collaborated with over 200 major companies, covering well-known platforms such as Oracle, Workday, Salesforce, and SAP, through automated testing.

Alibaba Group recently released its financial report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, highlighting the outstanding performance of Alibaba Cloud. The report shows that Alibaba Cloud's revenue grew by 6% year-on-year, reaching 26.549 billion yuan, with AI-related product revenue achieving triple-digit growth and public cloud business also realizing double-digit growth. Adjusted EBITA profit increased by 155% year-on-year, reaching 2.337 billion yuan.

The 'Cloud Pulse' report released by Wipro reveals that cloud computing is developing at an astonishing pace, with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) as a key driver. Based on a survey of over 500 senior leaders in North America and Europe, the report indicates a substantial increase in cloud investment, particularly in hybrid and public cloud solutions. Industries such as manufacturing and banking plan to ramp up their investments in hybrid cloud, focusing on public cloud. AI-driven solutions are essential for modernizing IT infrastructure, and companies prefer to adopt hybrid cloud to avoid vendor lock-in, optimize costs, and enhance integration.

AI Agent platform DevRev announced it has completed a $100 million Series A funding round, reaching a valuation of $1.15 billion, with investors including Khosla Ventures and Mayfield Fund. Founder Dheeraj Pandey is gaining attention for his successful experience in the cloud computing sector. The core product, the AgentOS platform, can extract data from traditional systems and easily build AI agents, achieving real-time data connections through knowledge graphs that integrate customer, product, and employee relationships to capture business insights.

TikTok pays Microsoft nearly $20 million monthly to access OpenAI's artificial intelligence models via Microsoft's cloud services, bringing approximately $1 billion in annual revenue to Microsoft's cloud division and highlighting the value of AI services in the tech industry. Should TikTok develop its own large language model, it may reduce its reliance on Microsoft's services. OpenAI previously suspended ByteDance's account to investigate whether it violated developer agreements. As OpenAI's exclusive cloud service provider, Microsoft has invested significant resources to support its models, such as ChatGPT.

Microsoft investors are focusing on balancing Azure service growth and AI investment returns. Azure grew steadily by 31%, but AI contributions only increased by 7%. The company's significant investment in AI is expected to raise capital expenditures by 53% to $13.64 billion this year, with short-term AI returns being a priority. There are concerns that high short-term investments in AI may affect returns, causing stock price volatility. Despite a....

GPU cloud computing company Lambda has launched a 1-Click Cluster Service, allowing users to access Nvidia H100 GPUs and Quantum 2 InfiniBand clusters on demand, especially suitable for companies needing GPU compute power for short-term projects. This innovative service simplifies the coordination of hardware and software, with no long-term contracts required; users simply reserve when needed, with a minimum reservation time of two weeks. Founded in 2012, Lambda recently raised $320 million, valuing the company at $1.5 billion, indicating strong market demand for its services.

Recently, Google has been extremely busy. According to the second-quarter financial report released by its parent company Alphabet on Tuesday, Google's revenue over the past few months has reached nearly $85 billion, an impressive figure indeed. Notably, the search business has performed exceptionally well, generating $48.5 billion in revenue. Additionally, Google's cloud computing division has also broken through the $10 billion mark for the first time, achieving an operating profit of $1 billi

Microsoft plans to invest $2.1 billion in Spain over the next two years to develop artificial intelligence and cloud computing infrastructure. This move demonstrates Microsoft's long-term commitment to Spain and its security and digital transformation. Microsoft will invest in building data centers, developing AI technologies, and cultivating talent. This is another significant investment initiative following Microsoft's announcement of a €3.2 billion investment in AI projects in Germany. Microsoft's aim is to further increase its market share in the global cloud computing and artificial intelligence sectors.

IBM's acquisition of Software AG's cloud computing and artificial intelligence assets for $2.33 billion will enhance IBM's capabilities in artificial intelligence and cloud computing, improving its data ingestion capabilities. The global integrated software market is expected to exceed $18 billion by 2027. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2024.

The Google Gemini Pro large model is available to developers and businesses. Gemini Pro features a 32K context window and generative capabilities, supporting 38 languages and providing various SDKs and Google AI Studio to help developers build applications. Users can access Gemini Pro and Gemini Pro Vision for free. Google will launch a more powerful model, Gemini Ultra, and introduce more developers.

Naver Cloud's CEO predicts a doubling of exports within three years, emphasizing that its AI services can meet demands beyond China and the US. South Korea is one of the few countries with foundational AI models, and Naver competes with Google to dominate local search engines. The CEO highlighted that South Korean companies struggle to adapt to US and Chinese standards, gaining a competitive edge. The company plans to strengthen cooperation with countries such as the UAE, the Philippines, and Singapore to provide a full suite of AI and cloud computing services.

Cast AI helps enterprises optimize cloud spending through AI and machine learning. The company secured $35 million in Series B funding led by Vintage Investment Partners. Cast AI enables clients to reduce cloud expenses while enhancing performance and engineering productivity. By connecting with major public cloud providers, Cast AI leverages model analysis and autonomous adjustments to cloud clusters. The company holds a competitive edge in the rapidly growing FinOps market.

["IBM reported a net profit of $1.7 billion in Q3, surpassing market expectations", "Software and consulting revenues have seen growth, with increasing applications of artificial intelligence", "IBM is confident that its software and consulting business will continue to grow steadily", "IBM's cloud computing revenue is growing, with partnerships established with Oracle and IBM", "IBM remains optimistic about the growth prospects for full-year revenue and free cash flow"]

Microsoft plans to invest AUD 5 billion in Australia over the next two years to enhance its artificial intelligence and cloud computing capabilities. The investment will be used to increase computing power and expand data center capacity, as well as to train 300,000 Australians in the skills needed for the digital economy. Microsoft stated that the investment will help Australia seize the growth opportunities presented by the era of artificial intelligence. The Australian government welcomed the investment, believing it will help prepare Australians for future employment. Microsoft's investment reflects its long-term commitment to the development of artificial intelligence in Australia.

SK Telecom's Cloud Radar 2.0 platform uses AI to analyze enterprise cloud usage and recommends the best cloud service pricing plans based on usage. Test results show an average reduction of 37.2% in cloud computing costs for enterprises. The platform analyzes and optimizes complex cloud service pricing, helping companies choose the most suitable cloud service subscription conditions.

The Google Cloud Computing Conference focused on AI, launching multiple new products with an emphasis on generative AI. Google introduced the next-generation AI chip Cloud TPU v5e, which improves performance by 2 times and reduces costs by half. Google Cloud, in partnership with NVIDIA, launched the A3 virtual supercomputer, which enhances performance by 3 times and can scale up to tens of thousands of GPUs.