Hello and welcome to Weekly News Roundup Issue #464. It is the end of April which means the Q1 2024 quarterly reports season is upon us. This week we will take a closer look at Microsoft’s and Alphabet’s Q1 2024 quarterly reports and how much these two tech giants are benefiting from generative AI.

In other news, an F-16 jet fighter piloted by an AI has been dogfighting with human pilots in the world’s first in-air tests. Festo has built a beautiful BionicBee robot. xAI released Grok-1.5 Vision and claims it is on par with OpenAI GPT-4V. Meanwhile, Apple has released small open-weights language models and researchers from Microsoft released an AI model that can generate realistic short videos of talking faces from just one static image and an audio sample.

I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s issue.

Microsoft and Alphabet have heavily bet on artificial intelligence in recent years. Both companies have poured billions into building AI teams, both internally and externally through investments in other AI companies. They have also devoted substantial resources to developing and training massive language models and expanding their data centers to boost their computational power.

And these massive bets are paying off, according to recently released quarterly reports.

Microsoft recorded $61.9B in revenue, up 17% year-over-year. This quarter alone, Microsoft reported $21.9B in profit, up from $18.3B a year ago. Azure’s revenue grew by 31% while Microsoft Cloud grew by 23%, reaching $35.1B in revenue. These results brought Microsoft’s market valuation close to $3 trillion, making it the world’s largest public company. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, attributes this growth to the company’s investments in AI-powered products and services, like copilots for Microsoft 365. Nadella also said that Azure cloud computing business saw the pace of deals worth $100M and $10M increase by double-digit percentages. Microsoft has recently had some big deals like Coca-Cola signing a $1.1M contract with Azure for AI and cloud computing services.

The quarterly report published by Alphabet also shows growing numbers. Alphabet’s revenue increased by 15% year-over-year, reaching $80.5B, with net income coming in at $23.7B (up 57%). Google Search revenue is up by 14.4% year-on-year from $40.36B to $46.15B. YouTube recorded $8.09B in revenue, up 20% compared to Q1 2023. Google Cloud, meanwhile, saw a 28% jump in revenue to $9.57B. Its operating income grew from $191M in Q1 2023 to $900M in Q1 2024, an almost fivefold increase. Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, cites the recent investments in AI-powered products and services as the main driver of growth.

On a call with investors, Pichai said that YouTube and Google Cloud combined revenue is projected to reach $100B by the end of the year. Alphabet’s stock jumped 13% in after-hours trading following the report and the company is on track to join Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia in the exclusive club of companies valued at over $2 trillion. The positive numbers definitely contributed to the valuation growth. However, it is worth mentioning that Alphabet also announced cash dividends and share buybacks, both of which help boost stock prices.

While Google’s and Microsoft’s bets on AI are paying off, putting everything into AI is not always welcomed by investors. Meta has learned that the hard way after announcing plans to “invest aggressively” in AI. The company plans to introduce new AI features into Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, all powered by the recently released Llama 3 model. Despite recording a 27% increase in revenue year-on-year, the news about Meta’s AI ambitions caused its stock to drop by 15%.

Microsoft’s and Alphabet’s bet on AI is paying off. Both companies offer generative AI tools and services as part of their cloud businesses and for business customers through Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. Both companies are also leaders in the generative AI space and ride the AI wave high, which is evident from their Q1 2024 fiscal reports. Now it would be interesting to see what numbers Nvidia, another key player who gained the most from the current AI boom, has to share. That could tell us a bit more if we are still around the Peak of inflated expectations or if are we heading towards the Trough of disillusionment.

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🦾 More than a human

The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision
In February 2022, Brian Bussard participated in a study in which he had 25 tiny chips implanted in his brain in an attempt to restore rudimentary vision for the first time since 2016. More than two years later, the implants continue to work. This study is part of significant efforts in the field of visual prostheses, with similar research being conducted in Spain and by companies like Cortigent and Neuralink. Although challenges remain, the technology that restored Brian's sight holds promise not only for restoring basic visual functions but also for enhancing the independence of blind individuals. Some look further into the future and envision the possibility of enhancing human sight with neural implants.

🧠 Artificial Intelligence

VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time
Researchers from Microsoft have released VASA-1, an AI model that can generate realistic short videos of talking faces from just one static image and an audio sample. The article features examples of what VASA-1 has generated and when we add that these videos can be generated in real-time on a single RTX 4090 GPU, the results are quite impressive. Researchers hope this model will be used in a positive way, for example in enhancing educational equity or offering companionship or therapeutic support to those in need. However, they also acknowledge the potential for this technology to create realistic deepfakes.

▶️ Mark Zuckerberg - Llama 3, $10B Models, Caesar Augustus, & 1 GW Datacenters (1:18:37)

Dwarkesh Patel sat down with Mark Zuckerberg shortly before the Llama 3 release to discuss Meta’s new model and how Meta plans to incorporate AI features into its products. Zuckerberg speculated about what is next for Meta and Llama, including what Llama 4 could look like, and the potential impact of AI on people’s lives in general, comparing it to the introduction of personal computers. Patel also asked Zuckerberg about his approach to "open source," potential issues that could arise from it, and whether he would open source a $10 billion model for everyone to download and use.

Grok-1.5 Vision Preview
xAI has released its latest large language model, Grok-1.5 Vision (Grok-1.5V), which can now process visual information, including documents, diagrams, charts, screenshots, and photographs. According to benchmark results provided by xAI, Grok-1.5V performs comparably to OpenAI's GPT-4V, Anthropic's Claude 3, and Google's Gemini Pro 1.5. Grok-1.5V will soon be available to early testers and existing Grok users.

xAI, Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival, is closing on $6B in funding and X, his social network, is already one of its shareholders
According to TechCrunch, Elon Musk’s xAI is in talks to raise $6B in funding, which would put not even a year-old xAI at a $18B valuation. The deal – which would give investors one-quarter of the company –  is expected to close in the next few weeks unless the terms of the deal change.

UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic and Inflection
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching preliminary enquiries into whether the close-knit tie-ups and hiring practices involving Microsoft, Amazon and a trio of AI startups, Mistral, Anthropic and Inflection, falls within the scope of its merger rules — and whether the arrangements could impact competition in the UK market.

Apple releases eight small AI language models aimed at on-device use
Apple has released OpenELM, a family of eight small language models whose size ranges from 270M to 3B parameters. Those models are small enough to work on smartphones without issues, possibly hinting at the future on-device AI offerings from Apple. OpenELM models are available for personal use on HuggingFace.

▶️ What's next for AI agentic workflows ft. Andrew Ng of AI Fund (13:39)

In this video, Andrew Ng, a well-respected AI researcher and recently a new member of Amazon’s Board of Directors, explains what AI agents are and how they work, and hints at a possible future where many AI agents collaborate to solve complex tasks.

A24’s New AI-Generated ‘Civil War’ Ads Generate Controversy
The movie industry does not like generative AI and any use of these tools in making movies is met with strong responses. A24 has learned that the hard way after releasing a series of posters promoting their latest movie, which were made with the help of generative AI tools.

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🤖 Robotics

US Air Force says AI-controlled F-16 fighter jet has been dogfighting with humans
DARPA has announced that an F-16 jet fighter, controlled by AI, has been dogfighting with human pilots. The test flight was part of DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program, which involves a specially modified F-16 test aircraft known as the X-62A or VISTA (Variable In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft). In the announcement, DARPA described this as “a transformational moment in aerospace history, establishing a foundation for ethical, trusted human-machine teaming in complex military and civilian applications.”

BionicBee

Festo is back with a new bionic robot. This time, Festo engineers built a Bionic Bee. This cleverly designed and beautiful robot weighs 34 grams and is 22 centimetres in length, with a wingspan of 24 centimetres. It is capable of autonomous flight both individually and in large numbers as part of a swarm.

Mentee Robotics de-cloaks to launch new AI-driven humanoid robot
Mentee Robotics has unveiled its prototype humanoid robot, Menteebot, joining other companies such as Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and Figure in the race to release commercial humanoid robots to the market. Mentee Robotics hopes to release its general-purpose bipedal robot robot in 2025, targeting households and warehouses as its primary markets.

Amazon ends California drone deliveries
Amazon has discontinued its Prime Air drone delivery in Lockeford, California, without detailing the reasons. Drone deliveries will continue in College Station, Texas, and are set to begin in Tolleson, Arizona, later this year.

Drone startup Zipline hits 1 million deliveries, looks to restaurants as it continues to grow
Autonomous delivery drone startup Zipline is celebrating its one-millionth delivery. The company, which serves a range of clients including over 4,700 hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic, as well as major brands such as Walmart and GNC, is looking to expand by offering restaurant partnerships in its next phase of growth.

Thermonator - a robot-dog with a flamethrower

In the US, you can now legally purchase a robot dog with a flamethrower attached to its back. All you need is a spare $10,000, and you can feel like you're in a dystopian sci-fi story. The company offering this robot envisions its use in non-military applications but is also open to engaging with US government agencies.

🧬 Biotechnology

We Need to be Ready for Biotech’s ChatGPT Moment
”The next big game-changing revolution is in biology," writes Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, predicting that the “ChatGPT moment” for biology is on the horizon. In this article, he urges the US to drive innovation before other countries take the lead, as has occurred in other industries. Schmidt also advocates for creating a secure and reliable domestic bioeconomy and domestic supply chains to minimize reliance on external partners, which could pose a national security risk.

Synthetic Origins
In this interview, Michael Elowitz, a pioneer in synthetic biology, shares the origin story of the repressilator, one of the first circuits made from DNA, that kickstarted the field of synthetic biology in 2000. Besides the repressilator, Elowitz discusses what the early days of synthetic biology looked like, what physicists bring to biology, and what he and his team are currently working on.

💡Tangents

Why Haven’t Hoverbikes Taken Off?
This article examines why personal hoverbikes—safe, quiet, ultra-compact, near-VTOL personal flying devices—have failed to deliver on their promises. It explores how physics and regulations have made the dream of creating hoverbikes extremely challenging and offers lessons for anyone who wants to turn things seen in science fiction into reality.

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