Didi raised 1.1 billion yuan in autonomous driving; Starlink launches direct mobile phone business|Technology Morning News
Hot Focus
Didi autonomous driving raised 1.1 billion yuan, and the world's top 500 "big money" invested
GAC Group recently announced that the board of directors has approved that its wholly-owned subsidiary, GAC Capital Co., Ltd., and Guangzhou Development Zone Investment Group Co., Ltd. will jointly invest in the establishment of a special fund with a scale of no more than US$155 million equivalent in the same proportion, and invest in Didi Autonomous Driving Company of no more than US$149 million (approximately RMB 1.08 billion). Among them, the Company increased its capital to its wholly-owned subsidiary, GAC Capital Co., Ltd., not exceeding US$75 million (approximately RMB 547 million) equivalent to the establishment of a special fund and participation in this investment. (Daily Economic News)
People familiar with the matter: OpenAI's annualized revenue exceeds $1.3 billion
According to multiple people familiar with the matter, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told his employees this week that the company's monthly revenue had exceeded $100 million. On an annualized basis, this equates to annualized revenue of $1.3 billion, a further increase of 30% compared to this summer. At that time, the company announced that it had achieved its goal of annualized revenue of $1 billion. Since launching the paid version of ChatGPT in February, the company's revenue has grown considerably, mainly from subscriptions to its "conversational chatbots." (Tencent Technology)
Starlink launches direct connection mobile phone service Expert: Satellite direct connection cannot replace the terrestrial network, but only supplements
On October 11, local time, Musk's Starlink official website launched a direct connection mobile phone business. According to the official website information, Starlink is expected to achieve SMS sending in 2024, voice calls in 2025, Internet access (Data) in 2025, and IoT (Internet of Things) in phases in the same year. (Beijing News)
Tech companies
The boyfriend of the kidnapped mixed-race girl is an NVIDIA employee? Huang told local staff to stay home
In the latest leaked email, Huang Jenxun, CEO of AI chip giant Nvidia, confirmed that an Israeli employee of the company was kidnapped in a Hamas raid last weekend. In addition, Huang also advised other employees in Israel to stay home as much as possible, take care of the safety of their families, and entrust critical work to colleagues around the world. (Tencent Technology)
HTC is giving up VR? Official response: impossible, absolutely impossible
A few days ago, market research company CCS Insight made a prediction in a report that HTC will sell its VR business and exit the VR market in 2026 due to market uncertainty. HTC issued a statement denying the rumors, and said that VR, AR and AI technologies will integrate with human nature to unleash human imagination and change the world. (Ray Technology)
Chairman of the Malaysian E-commerce Commission: Banning TikTok e-commerce will seriously damage the interests of small and medium-sized businesses
The chairman of the Malaysian e-commerce committee said that the ban on TikTok e-commerce will cause damage to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, short video creators and e-commerce practitioners. The Malaysian government is reviewing a policy to ban TikTok's e-commerce business. Previously, the Indonesian government banned TikTok's e-commerce function, which led TikTok to shut down its TikTok Shop business in Indonesia. (Beijing Business Daily)
Damo: Tesla's gross margin is expected to fall to 17.5% in the third quarter, and earnings per share of 56 cents are lower than expected
Morgan Stanley analysts expect Tesla's gross margin to be as low as 17.5% in the third quarter, down further from 18.1% in the second quarter and 19% in the first quarter. GAAP earnings per share are expected to be $0.56, below consensus expectations of $0.65. Analysts believe Tesla may continue to cut prices to maintain demand due to further delays in the delivery of the Cybertruck. (CaiLian News)
US media: TSMC received another "one-year exemption" from the United States, and the three major Asian chip manufacturers continue to operate in China
According to foreign media reports, the United States has notified the three major Asian chip manufacturers, including TSMC, that they can continue to maintain their current operations in Chinese mainland for the foreseeable future, although major technological upgrades may be difficult. According to the report, people familiar with the US government's move said that as in 2022, TSMC will again receive a one-year exemption. (Informational message)
WM Motor's official website and official app "down" have previously filed for bankruptcy reorganization
After WM Motor filed for bankruptcy reorganization, a number of services began to fall into "downtime", including vehicle systems, mobile apps and mobile phone Bluetooth keys. The official app "WM.ai" and the official website cannot be displayed normally, and the customer service phone is not answered. Since the beginning of this year, WM Motor has successively closed stores, stopped factory production, and employee wages have been arrears, and its shares have also been frozen. (Interface News)
AI weather vane
Ignoring the EU's ambitions to promote a global consensus, ASEAN opted for a more hands-off approach to AI regulation
In contrast to the EU's AI Act, ASEAN's AI Guidelines require companies to take into account cultural differences across countries and do not specify unacceptable risk categories. In addition, ASEAN's relatively hands-off approach is more business-friendly, limiting the compliance burden on companies under the existing local legal system, which is already complex, while also providing room for more innovation. (The Paper)
Leaving Google, 75-year-old Hinton is an AI robot! Join startups to build a "base model"
"Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton left Google to join the advisory board of robotics company Vayu Robotics to develop AI robotics solutions. He believes that Vayu's AI technology implementation has fewer ethical problems than other applications, and is optimistic about its development potential in the field of robotics, especially in the design of local delivery light low-speed robots. (Shin Ji Won)
Taobao version of ChatGPT is coming, Taobao wants to build a "Little Red Book"?
Taobao is testing its AI shopping guide app "Taobao Mobvoi", users can update the Taobao App to the latest version and search for "Taobao AI Assistant Closed Test". The app has two functions, "magic instructions" and "questions and answers", which can obtain product recommendations and e-commerce interactive experience through keyword search, and provide users with Q&A in some scenarios other than e-commerce. (Observer.com)
Baidu World 2023 spoilers: The big model will reconstruct the intelligent cockpit
A few days ago, at the Baidu World 2023 Media Pre-Communication Conference, Baidu disclosed the latest progress in the reconstruction of products such as online disks, intelligent work platforms such as streaming, and Apollo intelligent cabins based on large models. In addition, Baidu also revealed that at the upcoming "Baidu World 2023" on October 17, Baidu will also release Baidu GBI, the first generative business intelligence product in China. (Tencent News Periscope)
Tech figures
Tencent Tang Daosheng: Integration with industry is a "more successful way" for big model development
A few days ago, at the 2023 Fortune Global 500 Summit, Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president of Tencent Group and CEO of the Cloud and Smart Industry Business Group, said that Tencent has been committed to promoting the "industry can be landed" of large models, and large industry models in vertical fields can solve practical problems in the industry in a more targeted manner, which is the most effective way to implement large models. Tencent will also work with partners in different fields with an open mind to accelerate the penetration of large models into thousands of industries and promote the high-quality development of the industry. (Tencent Technology)
Xpeng Motors He Xiaopeng: The model jointly developed with the Volkswagen Group has been accelerating
A few days ago, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, posted on Weibo that he visited the Wolfsburg headquarters of the Volkswagen Group at the end of September. He said, "In the past few months, the models we jointly developed have been accelerating, and the technical teams of both parties are like an entrepreneurial team, fully engaged and full speed forward for a common goal; The strategic cooperation in the supply chain will bring us the potential to reduce costs together. (Interface News)