Meta Backs AI Data Analytics Firm Databricks In $10 Billion Fundraising Round
More than 10,000 organizations, including Comcast, Block, Rivian and Shell, rely on the company's Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to manage and analyze data for AI applications.
Databricks said on Wednesday Meta Platforms had joined as an investor in a $10 billion funding round intended to fuel the data analytics startup's expansion plans and new product development.
The Series J funding round closed on Wednesday and valued Databricks at $62 billion.
The company also secured a $5.25 billion credit facility led by JPMorgan Chase alongside Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
Founded in 2013, San Francisco-based Databricks offers a platform designed to help users ingest, analyze and build artificial intelligence applications using complex data from a variety of sources. Investors are racing to pour money into AI-related startups after the meteoric success of OpenAI's ChatGPT triggered a surge in corporate adoption of the technology. Sam Altman-led OpenAI raised $6.6 billion from investors in 2024.
Companies, including Meta, have been investing heavily to build and train large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, which are advanced AI systems designed to understand and generate human-like text.
Databricks works closely with Meta's Llama team. Llama is a family of open-source LLMs developed by the Facebook parent. "Thousands of customers are using Llama on Databricks and we have been working closely with Meta on how to best serve those enterprise customers with Llama," Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi said. "It naturally made sense for both parties to deepen that partnership through this investment."
More on Databricks $10 Billion raise with Meta participation
OpenAI Product Chief On Trump’s ‘Stargate,’ New AI Models And Agents
At WSJ Journal House Davos, OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil outlines ChatGPT’s 2025 roadmap with Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern—including a new model and AI agent features that can take actions on your behalf—while predicting the future of computing power, intelligence and regulation.
Weil also discusses why OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle are planning a massive investment in A.I. infrastructure in the U.S.
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Google Releases Free Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Model, Pressuring OpenAI’s Premium Subscription Price Strategy
Google has quietly released a major update to its popular artificial intelligence model, Gemini, which now explains its reasoning process, sets new performance records in mathematical and scientific tasks, and offers a free alternative to OpenAI’s premium services.
The new Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking model, released Tuesday in the Google AI Studio under the experimental designation “Exp-01-21,” has achieved a 73.3% score on the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) and 74.2% on the GPQA Diamond science benchmark. These results show clear improvements over earlier AI models and demonstrate Google’s increasing strength in advanced reasoning.
“We’ve been pioneering these types of planning systems for over a decade, starting with programs like AlphaGo, and it is exciting to see the powerful combination of these ideas with the most capable foundation models,” wrote Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, in a post on X.com (formerly Twitter).
Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking breaks records with million-token processing
The model’s most striking feature is its ability to process up to one million tokens of text — five times more than OpenAI’s o1 Pro model — while maintaining faster response times. This expanded context window allows the model to analyze multiple research papers or extensive datasets simultaneously, a capability that could transform how researchers and analysts work with large volumes of information.
“As a first experiment, I took various religious and philosophical texts and asked Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking to weave them together, extracting novel and unique insights,” Dan Mac, an AI researcher who tested the model, said in a post on X.com. “It processed 970,000 tokens in total. The output is pretty incredible.”
The release comes at a critical moment in the AI industry’s evolution. OpenAI recently announced its o3 model, which achieved an 87.7% score on the GPQA Diamond benchmark. However, Google’s decision to offer its model free during beta testing (with usage limits) could attract developers and enterprises seeking alternatives to OpenAI’s $200 monthly subscription.
More on Google’s new free Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Model
Larry Fink And Peng Xiao On Financing AI Infrastructure | Bloomberg At Davos
BlackRock Chairman and CEO Laurence D. Fink and G42 CEO Peng Xiao discussed US restrictions on semiconductor technology, meeting power demands with natural gas, the role of crypto and the risk of elevated inflation in a conversation with Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua at Bloomberg House in Davos.
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OpenAI Reportedly Launching 'Operator' That Can Control Your Computer Soon
So-called "computer use agents" are expected to be a major leap in AI that will allow bots to take control of a user’s browser to actually complete tasks on your behalf.
OpenAI is reportedly preparing for the launch of Operator sometime this week. Operator is name of its computer-use agent that can complete tasks in a user’s web browser on their behalf. Other companies including Google and Anthropic have been developing similar “agents” in hopes they will be the next major leap towards AI fulfilling its promise of being able to perform tasks currently done by humans.
According to The Information, which first reported on the impending launch, Operator will provide users with suggested prompts in categories like travel and dining and events. Users could, for instance, ask Operator to find a good flight from New York to Maui that would not have them landing too late in the evening. Operator will not complete a transaction—the user will remain in the loop and complete the checkout process.
It is easy to imagine certain ways Operator could be useful. Aging individuals who are not computer savvy could potentially ask Operator to help them send an email, and see it navigate to Gmail and open a compose window for them. Tech savvy people do not need this type of help, but older generators often struggle navigating the web and completing even simple tasks is a challenge. Bots could help in other areas as well, such as in quality-assurance testing where companies need to test that their new websites or services work properly.
More on OpenAI’s soon to be released Operator computer use agent
Cutting Through AI Hype | Axios At Davos
Axios business editor Dan Primack hosts conversations in Davos about the global AI race and the outlook for 2025 and beyond. Speakers include: General Atlantic CEO & chairman William E. Ford, Cisco chair & CEO Chuck Robbins.
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Microsoft’s LinkedIn Sued For Training AI Models With User Data
The suit alleges LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data.
Microsoft’s LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers who said the business-focused social media platform disclosed their private messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence models. According to a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data.
Customers said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on Sept. 18 to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a “frequently asked questions” hyperlink said opting out “does not affect training that has already taken place.” This attempt to “cover its tracks” suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers’ privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal fallout, the complaint said.
The lawsuit was filed in the San Jose, California, federal court on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before Sept. 18.
More on LinkedIn being sued for training AI models on user data
Anthropic CEO Calls For AI Policy Action
Anthropic CEO and Co-Founder Dario Amodei addressed the threat of autonomous AI and said he will work with the Trump administration on an energy provision to ensure critical security infrastructure around AI systems in a conversation with Bloomberg's Shirin Ghaffary and Brad Stone at Bloomberg House in Davos.
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