Biden’s Homeland Security team taps tech elite for AI defense board

April 26, 2024 Coin Telegraph

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The board includes the CEOs of Adobe, Alphabet, Anthropic, AMD, AWS, IBM, Microsoft, and Nvidia, as well as other business, civil rights, and academic leaders.

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced the formation of an Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board composed of a veritable who’s who of tech CEOs, academics, and influential business leaders.

Created under the direction of U.S. president Joseph Biden, the purpose of the new board is to advise DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the White House on matters related to artificial intelligence. Specifically, the board will “develop recommendations to help critical infrastructure stakeholders,” and “develop recommendations to prevent and prepare for AI-related disruptions to critical services that impact national or economic security, public health, or safety.”

CEOs from Adobe, Alphabet, Anthropic, AMD, AWS, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Nvidia, Delta Air Lines, Humane Intelligence, Occidental Petroleum, and Northropp Gruman make up the business sector of the board. They’re joined by academics from universities, civil rights and humanitarian institutions, the mayor of Seattle, Washington, and the governor of Maryland.

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Ethereum team lead sees zero interest from university in collaborating

December 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

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Peter Szilagyi, Ethereum's team lead, voiced dissatisfaction with his former university's lack of enthusiasm in recommending students for collaboration with Ethereum.

Peter Szilagyi, the team lead of Ethereum, has expressed frustration over his alma mater's lack of interest in providing opportunities for students to collaborate with Ethereum (ETH).

In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Szilagyi explained that he had always felt a lack of genuine interest when he returned to his old university to deliver talks about Ethereum.

He stated that the students appeared to be more focused on the price of Ethereum rather than the project itself.

“The audience seems to have been stuck in the number go up aspect; and the organizers always used it as an ad campaign.”

Over the past years I've been asked many times to do talks at my old university about #Ethereum. I did a couple of them, but didn't feel genuine interest.

The audience seems to have been stuck in the number go up aspect; and the organizers always used it as an ad campaign.
— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) December 2, 2023

Szilagyi noted that this year he organized a grant for 9 students to participate in Devconnect, including flights and accommodation.

“I haven't met the students myself, but someone supposedly has.

“Figured lets see if this piqued some interest.
Read more

Warren Buffett’s ‘crypto stock’ beats Apple and Amazon — but not Bitcoin

October 31, 2023 Coin Telegraph

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Buffett’s bet on crypto-friendly Nubank has put Berkshire Hathaway $130 million in profit already this year.

Warren Buffett may still view cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin (BTC) as “rat poison squared,” but he is generating big profits from his position in a crypto-friendly bank in 2023.

Warren Buffett’s “crypto bet” up $130 million in 2023

The “Oracle of Omaha” purchased 107 million shares of Nu Holdings, a Brazil-based fintech company and owner of the crypto-friendly Nubank, via his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, in two separate rounds in 2021.

Berkshire invested $500 million in Nu Holdings in June 2021 and raised its stake by another $250 million in December 2021. The firm has not sold a single share since, according to its second quarter 2023 earnings report.

Nu’s share price is currently up nearly 106% year-to-date (YTD), meaning Buffett’s $750 million position is now worth around $879.50 million, assuming Berkshire has still not sold any of its Nu shares. However, at its peak in February 2022, the position was worth over $1 billion .

*Nu daily price chart. Source: TradingView*

Why is Nubank crypto-friendly?

Nubank has been dubbed crypto-friendly because some of its divisions offer crypto-related services to over 1.35 million users. Therefore, investing in Nubank can be seen as having indirect exposure to the cryptocurrency industry.

That includes Easynvest, a trading platform that offers a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) product, and Nubank, a digital financial services platform that offers BTC and Ether (ETH) trading. Nubank also launched a loyalty token on the Polygon blockchain.

Moreover, Nu Holdings allocated 1% of its cash holdings to Bitcoin in May 2022.

“This move reinforces the company’s conviction in Bitcoin’s current and future potential in disrupting financial services in the region,” Nubank stated at the time.

Nubank is the largest fintech bank in Latin America, with over 80 million customers in Brazil.

Nu crushes Apple and Amazon stocks

Underperforming Nu stocks are Buffett’s other top holdings, Amazon and Apple, which have gained 54.65% and 36%, respectively. Apple is by far the biggest holding of Berkshire Hathaway, comprising roughly 45% of its $354 billion investment portfolio as of September 2023.

Nu has also outperformed Berkshire Hathaway’s stock, which has risen 9.25% YTD.

*Nu vs. Amazon, Apple and Berkshire Hathaway YTD performance chart. Source: TradingView*

Bitcoin price performance catches up with Nu stock

Nevertheless, Bitcoin has finally caught up to the price performance of Nu stock this year. In fact, BTC price is now also up 106% YTD amid “Uptober” and recent Bitcoin ETF euphoria.

*Nu vs. BTC/USD YTD performance chart. Source: TradingView*

Interestingly, Bitcoin’s rapid rise to catch up with Nu over the past weeks has coincided with BTC decoupling from the stock market in October.

But while this is generally seen as a bullish sign, some commentators argue that Bitcoin ETF “hopium” is the driver of BTC price gains presently.

Indeed. Lots of historical data that shows bitcoin is tightly correlated to the stock market. The recent “decoupling” is driven imo by hopium over the ETF. But a significant downturn in stocks will bring BTC back to earth. pic.twitter.com/5hk523j3Gp
— Joe Carlasare (@JoeCarlasare) October 26, 2023

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Immutable links with AWS in latest Web3 gaming push

October 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

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The blockchain gaming firm said it will gain access to a vast pipeline of game studio leads and support for successful deal closures.

Web3 gaming platform Immutable has partnered with Amazon Web Services to extend options for game developers as the cloud service provider expands its startup accelerator programs.

In an Oct. 10 blog post, Immutable said AWS added it to a list of companies within its ISV (independent software vendors) Accelerate Program, where organizations provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS.

Additionally, developers looking to build on Immutable’s blockchain can join AWS Activate, a program that provides perks including technical support, training and $100,000 worth of AWS cloud credits.

#Immutable @amazon

Amazon Web Services and Immutable are working together to shape the future of gaming!

Through our collaboration with Amazon, we will gain access to a vast pipeline of game studio leads, support for successful deal closures, and up to $100k in AWS cloud… pic.twitter.com/SX7xfFqrtK
— Immutable (@Immutable) October 10, 2023

AWS head of startups Australia, John Kearney, told Cointelegraph that Immutable is a “great example of a local Aussie startup that has gone global” and reaffirmed the cloud provider’s commitment to expanding Web3 game development using its infrastructure.

Immutable has been built with Amazon EventBridge and AWS Lambda, serverless services that use events to connect application components together. This has enabled the platform to "increase its scalability to handle a 10x increase in partnered games,” according to the announcement.

Concerns have previously been raised about the centralization of gaming and Ethereum along with the reliance on Amazon — the market leader capturing about a third of the cloud services market.

Immutable product marketing lead, Michael Powell, alleviated some of those concerns — explaining to Fortune in an Oct. 11 report:

“A lot of blockchain purists are very big into the idea of decentralization and that everything has to be on-chain and that’s a massive deviation from where game developers actually build.”

In August, Immutable began public testing its zkEVM, or zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine, in collaboration with Polygon Labs.

According to the firm, zkEVM will lower development costs for game developers while providing the security and network effects that come with the Ethereum ecosystem.

Immutable was valued at $2.5 billion in March 2022 following a $200 million Series C funding round led primarily by Singaporean state-owned investment firm Temasek.

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French police raid Nvidia offices amid antitrust investigation: Report

September 29, 2023 Coin Telegraph

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The action reportedly came as a part of a general inquiry of French antitrust authorities into the cloud computing sector.

Nvidia, one of the global leaders in artificial intelligence (AI) chip production with headquarters in California, reportedly faced a police raid in its French offices this week. The action came as a part of a general inquiry of French antitrust authorities into the cloud computing sector.

The Wall Street Journal reported the raid on Sept. 28, although neither Nvidia nor the French enforcement agencies have officially commented on what happened.

A press release on the webpage of the French antitrust agency, Autorité de la Concurrence, refers to an unannounced inspection in the graphics cards sector. According to the release, a judge authorized the raid at the premise of the company “having implemented anticompetitive practices in the graphics cards sector.”

However, the raid itself does not “pre-suppose the existence of a breach of the law, which could be imputed to the company,” as the message from the agency specifies.

Autorité de la Concurrence refers to its own opinion, issued in conclusion to a year-long study of the cloud computing sector. Published in June 2023, this document does not mention Nvidia. Instead it focuses on other tech companies, namely the three hyper scalers” — Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Clou,d and Microsoft Azure. According to the agency’s data, they represent 80% of the spending growth in public cloud infrastructures and applications in France in 2021:

“Amazon and Microsoft have captured 46% and 17% respectively of revenues from IaaS and PaaS services in 2021. Given their financial capacities and their digital ecosystems, these hyperscalers are in a position to hinder competition development.”

The agency is considering various options provided by the national competition laws and the European Data Act to combat this tendency.

Nvidia inevitably comes under the regulators' attention due to its unique position as the hardware producer for the most innovative sectors of the digital industry. The company's recent quarterly report revealed that the United States regulators asked it to curb exports of AI chips to “some Middle East countries.” A day later, the United States Department of Commerce denied this information.

Amazon invests $4 billion Anthropic AI startup

September 25, 2023 Coin Telegraph

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Amazon and the AI startup Anthropic have entered into an investment agreement that invests $4 billion into the start-up to develop high-performing foundation models.

Amazon and artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic have announced a new investment agreement to aid the research and development of new high-performing foundation models.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Anthropic revealed that Amazon has invested $4 billion in its work, while receiving access to Amazon cloud services (AWS) Trainium and Inferentia chips.

It said it will be offering in return “enhanced support” of Amazon Bedrock, which produces foundation models, with "secure model customization and fine-tuning" for businesses. Amazon teams will also be able to use Bedrock to build on Anthropic’s models.

Our agreement provides Anthropic with access to @awscloud Trainium and Inferentia chips. We’ll also offer enhanced support of Amazon Bedrock with secure model customization and fine-tuning for businesses.
— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) September 25, 2023

Additionally, through the deal Amazon is reported to be taking a “minority stake” in Anthropic. The latter said this has caused no disruption in its governance.

“As outlined in this policy, we will conduct pre-deployment tests of new models to help us manage the risks of increasingly capable AI systems.”

The AI startup was formed by former members of the Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the creator of the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT.

This latest development comes shortly after Anthropic announced an investment of $100 million from the South Korean telecommunications giant SK Telecom back in August.

That investment followed a collaboration between Anthropic and SK Telecom to develop a multilingual large language model (LLM) for the latter’s Telco AI Platform.

Anthropic has also recently been a part of major movements within the AI community. In July it joined Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and others in the formation of the “Frontier Model Forum,” which was created in order to self-regulate the development of from the inside.

It has also been a part of initiatives led by the United States government relating to AI development and regulation, including a cybersecurity challenge to help strengthen its “critical infrastructure.”

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AI companies commit to safe and transparent AI, White House reports

July 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

The Biden Administration emphasized the responsibility of these companies in ensuring the safety of their products.

The White House announced on July 21, that prominent artificial intelligence (AI) companies, such as OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, have made commitments to create AI technology that is safe, secure and transparent. Additionally, the White House acknowledged other companies like Amazon, Anthropic, Meta and Inflection for also committing to AI safety.

The Biden Administration emphasized the responsibility of these companies in ensuring the safety of their products. The goal is to harness AI's potential while promoting the highest standards in its development.

Kent Walker, Google's President of Global Affairs, acknowledged that achieving success in AI requires collaboration. He expressed satisfaction in joining other leading AI companies to support these commitments and assured that they will continue to work together by sharing information and best practices.

*Screenshot of the White house statement release. Source: White House*

Among the commitments are pre-release security testing for AI systems, sharing best practices in AI safety, investing in cybersecurity and insider threat safeguards and enabling third-party reporting of vulnerabilities in AI systems. Anna Makanju, OpenAI's VP of Global Affairs, stated that policymakers worldwide are contemplating new regulations for advanced AI systems.

In June, bipartisan U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill to create an AI commission, addressing concerns in the rapidly growing industry. The Biden Administration says it is collaborating with global partners like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the UK to establish an international framework for AI.

According to Microsoft President Brad Smith, the company is endorsing all of President Biden's voluntary commitments and independently committing to additional practices that align with these crucial objectives. By doing so, Microsoft aims to expand its safe and responsible AI practices and collaborate with other industry leaders.

Global leaders, including the United Nations Secretary-General, have expressed concerns about the potential misuse of generative AI and deepfake technology in conflict zones. In May, the Biden administration met with AI leaders to establish the groundwork for ethical AI development and announced a significant $140 million investment in AI research and development by the National Science Foundation.

The administration emphasized that these immediate commitments by the companies highlight the essential principles of safety, security and trust, signifying a crucial step towards the responsible development of AI.

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Warren Buffett’s “crypto bet” up $130 million in 2023

Why is Nubank crypto-friendly?

Nu crushes Apple and Amazon stocks

Bitcoin price performance catches up with Nu stock

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