Billionaire businessman Elon Musk is planning to announce a new generative artificial intelligence start-up to rival Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, according to a news media report on Friday.
Mr Musk is building a team of AI researchers and engineers, and he is also in talks with various investors in his other ventures, such as SpaceX and Tesla, about pumping capital into his new AI start-up, British daily newspaper Financial Times reported.
“A bunch of people are investing in it … it’s real and they are excited about it,”a person with direct knowledge of the talks said in a quote to FT.
Mr Musk, co-founder and chief executive of the world’s biggest electric vehicle maker Tesla, has ordered “thousands of high-powered GPU (graphic processing unit) processors” from technology company Nvidia, it added.
GPUs are sophisticated chips capable of running many tasks simultaneously. They're necessary in building generative AI’s large language models that can produce humanlike writing or lifelike images and videos.
Mr Musk, who cofounded the California-based start-up OpenAI in 2015, left its board in 2018 following disagreements with the company's direction.
He has also been critical of the company in recent months, arguing that OpenAI is placing several safety nets to prevent ChatGPT from offering results that might be divisive or offend its users.
Generative AI uses machine learning to produce content such as text, images, video and audio. It can generate novel content, in the right context, instead of merely analysing or acting on the existing data.
The global generative AI market is expected to reach $188.62 billion by 2032, growing at an annual rate of more than 36 per cent from $8.65 billion last year, according to a report by Brainy Insights. The North American region dominated the market in 2022.
Generative AI could also drive a seven per cent — or almost $7 trillion — increase in the global economy and lift productivity growth by 1.5 percentage points over a 10-year period, Goldman Sachs estimated.
Mr Musk has reportedly hired Igor Babuschkin, who recently left DeepMind AI, to lead a group of AI researchers in the endeavour. He is hiring engineers from top AI labs, including DeepMind, FT reported, quoting people with knowledge of his plans.
Mr Musk’s potential entry to the disruptive generative AI industry will add yet another venture to his diverse set of businesses and investments.
The Wall Street Journal also reported on Friday that Mr Musk filed paperwork to start an AI company called X.AI Corp.
He bought microblogging site Twitter for $44 billion in October. He has also cofounded $137 billion rocket maker SpaceX, a neurotechnology research company Neuralink, and founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction services start-up.
Last week, he reportedly merged Twitter with one of his companies called X Corp. Although Twitter will still function as a social media platform, this could be the entrepreneur's first step towards transforming the company into an “everything app”, similar to China’s WeChat.
The FT report said that his new AI start-up will be a separate entity and he could use Twitter content as data to train its language model and harness Tesla technologies for computing resources.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
MATCH INFO
Chelsea 1 (Hudson-Odoi 90 1')
Manchester City 3 (Gundogan 18', Foden 21', De Bruyne 34')
Man of the match: Ilkay Gundogan (Man City)
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
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Dark Souls: Remastered
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DUBAI CARNIVAL RESULTS
6.30pm Handicap US$135,000 (Turf) 2,410m
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Winner: Equilateral, James Doyle, Charles Hills.
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8.50pm Al Fahidi Fort Group Two $250,000 (T) 1,400m
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How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
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The five types of long-term residential visas
Obed Suhail of ServiceMarket, an online home services marketplace, outlines the five types of long-term residential visas:
Investors:
A 10-year residency visa can be obtained by investors who invest Dh10 million, out of which 60 per cent should not be in real estate. It can be a public investment through a deposit or in a business. Those who invest Dh5 million or more in property are eligible for a five-year residency visa. The invested amount should be completely owned by the investors, not loaned, and retained for at least three years.
Entrepreneurs:
A five-year multiple entry visa is available to entrepreneurs with a previous project worth Dh0.5m or those with the approval of an accredited business incubator in the UAE.
Specialists
Expats with specialised talents, including doctors, specialists, scientists, inventors, and creative individuals working in the field of culture and art are eligible for a 10-year visa, given that they have a valid employment contract in one of these fields in the country.
Outstanding students:
A five-year visa will be granted to outstanding students who have a grade of 95 per cent or higher in a secondary school, or those who graduate with a GPA of 3.75 from a university.
Retirees:
Expats who are at least 55 years old can obtain a five-year retirement visa if they invest Dh2m in property, have savings of Dh1m or more, or have a monthly income of at least Dh20,000.
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