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Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence startup Shield AI recently announced that its valuation has nearly doubled to $5 billion in a new funding round. The San Diego-based company focuses on developing AI-driven software for drones and autonomous aircraft, planning to raise approximately $200 million from several defense and aerospace companies, including well-known firms such as Palantir, Airbus, and L3 Harris. Venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Point72, and Ri.

Against the backdrop of Trump's return to the White House, top entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley are quietly becoming key technological advisors to the president. Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks are among those strategizing for Trump, with their most notable point being their strong criticism of AI regulation. This group of tech elites believes that AI chatbots are emerging as a new ideological battleground. Their core concern is that large tech companies may use AI systems to propagate specific political positions, achieving a more covert and effective form of 'regulation'.

Europe's most valuable artificial intelligence startup, Mistral, is actively expanding its operations in the United States to compete for AI talent with rivals in Silicon Valley. The Paris-based company is establishing a new office in Palo Alto, California, and is seeking to hire engineers, scientists, and sales teams to drive its growth in the U.S. market. According to insiders, one of Mistral's co-founders, Guillaume Lample, is also involved.

In Silicon Valley, the garage culture has birthed many tech legends, and Christoph Kohstall's garage may be the next. Inside his workspace, electrical components, workbenches, and mechanical tools are scattered everywhere, but the most striking feature is the red industrial beams on the ceiling—a gantry system used to stabilize robots during testing. Kohstall is the founder of Kind Humanoid, a startup developing a bipedal robot called Mona. Though their work environment appears chaotic, it is filled with innovation.

Kind Humanoid is a robotics startup based in Palo Alto, founded by Christoph Kostol, who has a background in Silicon Valley. The company's workspace is filled with various electronic components and fabrication tools, reflecting the spirit of DIY computing that has characterized Silicon Valley. The design of Kind Humanoid's robots is inspired by the surrealistic art style of Belgian painter René Magritte. The company's designer, Yves Béhar, stated that he hopes to convey a message through the design of the robots.

California lawmakers have passed the SB1047 bill aimed at ensuring AI safety, which is set to be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. The bill requires AI models with training costs exceeding $100 million to undergo safety testing before release and establishes an emergency stop function in case of accidents. It also mandates reporting to the California Attorney General within 72 hours of an incident and establishes a 'Cutting-edge Model Bureau' to oversee compliance, with substantial fines for violators. This initiative aims to prevent AI misuse, ensure safety, and has garnered support from notable figures in the AI field. However, tech giants have had mixed reactions.

Global tech entrepreneurs and investors are praising the UK as a destination for artificial intelligence investment, but the UK faces competition in its bid to become the world's third-largest AI center.

The Japan government-supported semiconductor research group collaborates with the U.S. startup Tenstorrent Inc. to design AI chips. Tenstorrent is working with the Japanese government to design AI chips based on the open-source RISC-V standard. The Japanese government is investing $67 billion to reclaim core status in the semiconductor industry. Tenstorrent collaborates with the government-supported startup Rapidus Corp. to produce the AI chips. Jim Keller is a Silicon Valley legend who has worked at Apple.

Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis believes that OpenAI's reliance on scale expansion has not led to native innovation. Hassabis admits to previously underestimating the public's demand for and acceptance of AI. He points out that increasing scale is not equivalent to native innovation, stating that OpenAI has not undertaken genuine innovations. Demis Hassabis remarks that in the history of technology, scale expansion is unusual and generally requires research outcomes to result in qualitative change.

Dropped out at 19 to start a business, received $5 million in investments from NEA and Sequoia, joined Y Combinator to help it become a business empire, ultimately forced out by partners, created OpenAI, secured a $13 billion investment from Microsoft, and successfully reinstated after being dismissed by the board.

The Silicon Valley AI startup market has recently undergone significant changes. Amid the investment frenzy, companies like Jasper have emerged as the biggest losers. Jasper's high valuation has not been recognized by the market, and its product is not deemed essential. Some chatbot startups lack technical barriers and have failed to stand out. Successful players include established tech companies and small firms, the latter of which are forming a new trend of micro SaaS.

The GPT-4-Turbo API is fast and easy to use. The TTS API can enable automatic soccer commentary. The new API allows for the rapid creation of small GPT models. The Vision API can recognize camera scenes in real-time. The Vision API can quickly convert design drafts into web pages.

New York tech companies and investors view artificial intelligence as a new opportunity to replace the San Francisco Bay Area as the AI center. Next week, New York will host 'Tech Week' with 370 events showcasing AI technology. New York must leverage AI applications in key industries such as finance, communication, law, and healthcare to reach its potential. It has become a display window for AI, with companies like Microsoft, Google, and LinkedIn launching new products here. Since 2021, venture capital and talent have flocked to New York, but San Francisco still remains far ahead in the tech sector.

Nemo Yang, a post-00s Chinese entrepreneur, founded Kinesys AI and launched the large model middleware Cortex, which has attracted considerable interest from investors. Cortex enables quick integration of large model APIs and data interface access, saving AI developers a significant amount of time. Startups in the large model middleware space, such as LangChain and LlamaIndex, have also secured investments from Silicon Valley firms. Due to the high technical barriers, competition in the large model middleware field is not intense, making it a promising niche industry. The market for large model middleware is vast and is expected to facilitate the deployment of AI applications.

Talkie is an AI chatbot and card game product that has recently seen a rapid rise in rankings in the non-gaming category of the US App Store. Silicon Valley VCs believe that generative AI applications in the B2B sector require high-quality industry data, diverse application scenarios, and strong market demand. Industries like healthcare and finance possess high-quality data and numerous application scenarios, making them fertile ground for generative AI. The quality of data is more important than quantity; specialized models for industries can be trained without massive data sets. Foreign education companies are exploring various applications of ChatGPT in the education sector.

The venture capital ecosystem in Silicon Valley is optimistic about the B-end applications of generative AI. Large models hold greater commercial opportunities in the B-end, with data quality being the core barrier for generative AI entrepreneurs. The healthcare industry represents the most potential vertical, while C-end applications face issues of data quality and homogenization.

1. The proportion of AI projects in YC continues to increase, reaching 57% 2. LLMOps tools are replacing ChatUI as a popular startup direction 3. The Copilot concept remains highly popular

The rise of generative AI has brought a significant influx of venture capital to the United States, reaching $14.6 billion this year, far exceeding the total from the past two years. Experts believe generative AI is the most transformative technological trend since 1995. AI companies have regained the favor of investors, reversing the overall slowdown in venture capital seen earlier this year.