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.

Recently, an analysis by The Guardian revealed that there may be serious misleading practices by tech companies in handling the environmental impact of their AI data centers. The emission data reported by tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple significantly diverges from reality. According to this analysis, the actual emissions from these companies are 662% higher than the figures they officially disclose, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, as this study only covers data from 2020 to 2022. Image source note: Image generated by AI, image licensed from service provider Midjou.

According to the Financial Times, BlackRock, one of the world's largest asset management companies, will collaborate with tech giant Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm MGX to launch a large AI fund exceeding $30 billion. The fund will primarily be used to build data centers and invest in energy infrastructure to meet the growing demand for AI computing. Additionally, chip giant NVIDIA will provide technical support for the fund to address the challenges posed by AI technology.

Recently, Microsoft launched a new platform called Windows Agent Arena (WAA) specifically designed to test the performance of AI assistants in real Windows operating system environments. This innovative benchmarking tool aims to accelerate the development of AI assistants, enabling them to perform complex computational tasks across various applications and enhance human-computer interaction efficiency. The research team published a paper on arXiv.org highlighting the immense potential of large language models as computer assistants.

Recently, reports have emerged that the UAE's sovereign investment company MGX is considering participating in a multi-billion dollar financing round for OpenAI. According to The Wall Street Journal, MGX has not yet determined the specific amount of its investment, while OpenAI is seeking to raise $6.5 billion and increase the company's valuation to $150 billion. This financing plan has the support of venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and Microsoft may also be involved, given its engagement since 2019.

OpenAI is in funding talks to raise $6.5 billion, aiming for a $150 billion valuation, supported by a $5 billion revolving credit facility from banks. The high valuation stems from the success of ChatGPT, solidifying OpenAI's position as a key player in AI, backed by Microsoft and led by Sam Altman.....

The current tech industry mainly relies on the boom of artificial intelligence (AI) to mask its overall sluggish condition, with many companies continuing to struggle amid economic downturns. Traditional tech sectors, such as software, IT consulting, and companies providing electronic devices for manufacturing and the automotive industry, face problems of weak demand and excess inventory, making recovery difficult. While AI has become the sole growth point, the aftermath of overhiring and excessive spending, coupled with economic uncertainty, has increased the difficulty of recovery. Large tech companies are experiencing a slowdown in growth, and small businesses in the tech sector are particularly facing weak revenue growth. Although AI is the current highlight,

Microsoft collaborates with the anti-revenge pornography organization StopNCII to provide victims with tools to erase deepfake pornographic images from search engines. By creating a digital fingerprint (hash value) of the images on the device, it helps to completely remove related synthetic nude images from platforms like Bing. This initiative aims to address the issue of deepfake pornography caused by the misuse of generative AI technology, tackling the challenges that cannot be effectively managed solely through user reports. However, Google has not yet partnered with StopNCII, and there is a lack of specific federal laws addressing such behavior in the United States.

The 2024 annual work trends report released by Microsoft and LinkedIn shows that employers' preferences are shifting towards candidates with AI skills rather than those with extensive industry experience. 71% of corporate executives are inclined to hire job seekers with AI capabilities, but only 25% of companies plan to offer AI training, leading to 75% of knowledge workers learning AI tools on their own. With work pressure intensifying, 46% of employees consider resigning, and 45% worry that AI will replace their jobs. AI is reshaping the workplace, requiring professionals to actively learn and adapt.

Microsoft plans to introduce the 'Smart Media Search' feature in Windows 11, allowing users to search for indexed local video or audio files using voice commands. This feature requires user consent to scan media files on the device and will download and install AI models in the background for transcription and indexing. The feature is still in development, and the AI models may require dedicated neural processing units for calculations. It remains unclear whether users can select specific files for search, raising privacy concerns due to the AI's comprehensive scanning of media content. If selective processing is allowed for users, this feature...

Three tech giants, OpenAI, Adobe, and Microsoft, have united to support California's AB3211 bill, which requires tech companies to add labels to generated content to help identify works created by artificial intelligence (AI). Key provisions include adding watermarks in the metadata of AI-generated photos, videos, and audio clips, and large online platforms are required to label AI-generated content in a way that is easily understood by the general audience. This bill aims to address issues of information sourcing and enhance public understanding and trust in AI technology.

Tong Xin, a former global research partner at Microsoft, has concluded his 25-year research career at Microsoft Research Asia as a leading figure in the field of graphics. He has joined the newly established AGI startup Anuttacon as Chief Researcher. Anuttacon focuses on exploring the boundaries of AGI and creating virtual world experiences using AI technology, currently operating in both Singapore and the San Francisco Bay Area. Tong Xin's addition, along with former Bilibili Vice President Wang Yuyang serving as Chief User Ecosystem Officer, brings a strong technological background and rich industry experience to the company.

AGI startup Anuttacon has announced the addition of Tong Xin and Wang Yuyang, with Tong Xin taking on the role of Chief Researcher and Wang Yuyang serving as President of User Ecosystem. Both are top talents in the industry, with Tong Xin previously being a global research partner at Microsoft and Wang Yuyang formerly serving as Vice President at Bilibili. Anuttacon focuses on AI technology, developing virtual world experiences and AGI products. This move showcases the company's ambition in the AGI field and its strong demand for top AI talents.

Microsoft plans to launch the controversial Recall AI feature for Windows Insiders in October, originally scheduled for release in June alongside Copilot Plus PC, but delayed due to security issues. The Recall feature allows users to screenshot content on their computers, making it easier to search and review history, and includes a timeline functionality. Although Microsoft claims the feature is secure and private, security personnel discovered that the database was not encrypted, raising privacy concerns. In response to these risks, Microsoft will implement measures requiring users to choose to enable Recall.

Microsoft has released Phi-3.5-vision, a lightweight, multimodal open source AI model designed for processing textual and visual inputs, supporting a context length of 128K. This model is suitable for resource-constrained environments and features capabilities such as image understanding, OCR, chart parsing, and multi-image summarization, showcasing excellent performance and low latency. Comprised of 4.2 billion parameters, it is trained with high-quality data to ensure performance and privacy. It includes three models: lightweight AI, expert mix, and multimodal model, all demonstrating outstanding performance in image and video processing benchmarks.

Microsoft has released three new AI models aimed at enhancing its leadership in the multilingual and multimodal fields. The Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct is a lightweight model suitable for task execution, code generation, and logical reasoning, excelling particularly in multilingual and multi-turn conversations. The Phi-3.5 MoE (Mixture of Experts) model is rich in parameters and supports various inference tasks, especially outperforming peers in code, mathematics, and multilingual understanding. The Phi-3.5 Vision Instruct integrates text and image processing capabilities.

The water consumption of data centers has skyrocketed, especially in Virginia, where it has nearly doubled from 2019 to 2023, reflecting a significant global demand for water resources. The water usage by tech giants Microsoft and Google indicates that substantial amounts of water are being consumed in areas facing water scarcity and extreme shortages. However, data centers struggle to implement closed-loop water recycling systems mainly because the water used for humidity control evaporates, particularly in dry regions, which may increase static electricity risks and be detrimental to equipment. As artificial intelligence becomes more widespread, the number of data centers and the demand for water resources continues to grow.

The academic community is currently facing a controversy over data usage rights, as many academic publishers begin to package and sell research paper data to technology companies for training AI models. This action has sparked widespread discussion. Deals between Taylor and Francis and Microsoft, as well as Wiley and another company, have led to academic achievements being used to enhance AI systems. This practice has caused waves in the research community. Experts point out that once papers are used for training, it is difficult to remove them later, and the widespread acquisition of datasets enables AI models to learn and generate high-quality text.

Microsoft released a report indicating that Iran is utilizing cyber influence operations and generative artificial intelligence to control the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Activities have increased since June, including online reconnaissance, infiltrating online crowds, and websites. The report mentions that several Iranian organizations are involved, such as 'Sefid Flood', which creates chaos by impersonating social and political activists to undermine public trust in authorities; the 'Mint Sandstorm' organization conducts phishing attacks. Additionally, the 'Storm-2035' network operates fake news websites.