Iterative, the MLOps company working toward strategizing the workflow of data scientists and machine learning (ML) engineers, has announced a free extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code). The extension is a source-code editor developed by Microsoft for machine learning model development and experiment tracking.
The extension will simplify machine-learning model development workflows for data scientists and meet the ML modelers working there. The extension eliminates the need for expensive SaaS solutions for experiment tracking by turning VS Code into a native machine learning (ML) experimentation tool built for developers.
VS Code is a coding editor that allows users to initiate coding in any programming language quickly. The DVC extension for Visual Studio Code will allow users from all technical backgrounds to create, visualize, compare, and reproduce machine learning experiments. The extension makes experiments easily reproducible through Git and Iterative’s DVC. This is unlike traditional experiment tracking tools that only stream metrics.
The extension enhances the existing VS Code UX with features using Source Control view, Command Palette, File Tree explorer, and custom in-editor web views. These features aid data scientists in model development and experimentation workflows. Through this extension, users can run and reproduce experiments, pull and push versioned data, and view metrics and tables.
Beyond the tracking of ML models, hyperparameters, and metrics, this extension makes ML experiments reproducible by tracking data changes and source code. According to Dmitry Petrov, CEO of Iterative, the company’s experiment versioning technology implemented in DVC last year makes this reproducibility possible.
Additionally, the extension provides resource tracking for data scientists to see which data sets and models have changed. It also allows the exploration of all project or model files. Other features of the extension include live tracking of metrics, native plot visualization, and
Shenzhen-based biotech startup Meta Pharmaceuticals lands its initial investment of $15M. The company is about ten months old and is an XtalPi AI-assisted project. XtalPi is an industry incumbent in pharmaceutical technology.
With the investment, Meta aims to make drugs for autoimmune diseases with the assistance of AI. The acquisition is a total of seed and pre-A funding rounds that included Forcefield Ventures, IMO Venture, Tiantu Capital, and XtalPi itself. Both XtalPi and Meta have a complementary role in translating new drug targets into patents. Both companies are ambitious to capture the market with AI-based marketable drugs.
Meta’s technology and work fall under immuno-metabolism to study the relationship between immunology and metabolism. Drugs belonging to the category are purposed to regulate the immune system. As of now, XtalPi will cater to the Initial stages of the discovery of therapeutic targets and their molecular design. Once the drug reaches the pre-clinical phase, Meta shall take over to facilitate further development, new drug filing, and trials.
It will use public data for initial training and plans to collect samples and patient data in collaboration with hospitals in China further down the process. An XtalPi spokesperson said, “Our pipeline has the potential to be used for treating a wide range of autoimmune problems, cancer and age-associated diseases. It’s still too early to share the specifics just yet or limit ourselves to one or two existing drugs and indications.”
Indeed, Meta plans to take its drug to the global market. Currently, the startup is receiving support from Shenzen and Hong Kong in its infancy. Many government-led initiatives like tax exemptions are being provided to Meta and other similar startups.
Tabnine will use its $15.5M funding to create an AI-powered assistant that autocompleted code for software developers. Qualcomm Ventures, OurCrowd, and Samsung NEXT Ventures co-led the funding round with Kholsa Ventures and Headline Ventures. The proceeds of this investment will improve developer experience, add new capabilities, and strengthen Tabnine’s offerings.
Tabnine was founded by Dror Weiss and Eran Yahav in 2012 as Codota, named later Tabnine around 2017. It employs AI to complete chunks of code after knowing the purpose. It uses trained tapping algorithms to understand the code models and then attempts to learn the developer’s practices.
“Based on our previous work on code analysis and simulation, we realized that with the vast amount of commonality and standard patterns in code, it was inevitable that AI will be a critical part in the dev process. We set out and pioneered the AI code assistant category”, said Dror Weiss, CEO, and Co-founder of Tabnine.
Tabnine provides improvements on every keystroke. Developers can also have full-line recommendations within the development environments like VSCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse, Android Studio, and Webstorm. The platform provides ‘code-native’ AI models trained in specific programming languages. It supports Java, C++, PHP, Go, C#, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Rust, Swift, TypeScript, Haskell, OCaml, Scala, Kotlin, Perl, SQL, CSS, HTML, and Bash.
Weiss also claims that Tabnine’s approach enables it to learn the patterns in code efficiently. He said, “Our models give customers the flexibility to run Tabnine either on our cloud or on their network, and the ability to train custom AI models that capture the specific patterns in their repositories.”
Mobility commerce platform Metropolis Technologies raises $167 million in its recently held series B funding round led by 3L Capital and Assembly Ventures.
Several other investors, including Dragoneer Investment Group, Eldridge, Silver Lake Waterman, and UP Partners, also participated in the company’s latest funding round.
Metropolis has witnessed 28x user growth and is currently active in over sixty cities even after facing the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic brought.
The company enables drive-in and drive-out payment for millions, runs over 600 parking lots and garages, and collaborates with thousands of grocery stores, coffee shops, and other neighborhood retailers.
Co-founder and CEO of Metropolis Technologies, Alex Israel, said, “By bringing urban mobility infrastructure online, we are knitting disconnected parts of the everyday journey into a remarkable experience.”
He further added that the seamless transactions that they take for granted in eCommerce are mostly absent in real life, but Metropolis’ computer vision technology is changing that one commute, one-morning coffee, and one supermarket run at a time.
United States-based artificial intelligence and computer vision startup Metropolis was founded by Alexander Israel, Courtney Fukuda, Peter Fisher, and Travis Kell in 2017. The company specializes in developing technologies to modernize parking and empower the future of mobility. Metropolis’s platform also connects users to local business specials and discounts, generating new economic prospects for thousands of local companies.
The parking activity data collected by Metropolis can be used to assist users in finding parking spots faster—a potentially important service in a car-centric metropolis like Los Angeles. To date, Metropolis has raised $228 million from multiple investors over three funding rounds.
Interactive entertainment company and Activision’s subsidiary King acquires real-world artificial intelligence applications developing firm Peltarion. However, neither company provided any information regarding the valuation of this acquisition deal.
This new acquisition of Peltarion will help King boost up the contemporary use of AI and systems, getting to know the era in King’s recreation platform. According to the company, this acquisition is a strategic step toward the company’s direction.
King intends to continue building top-tier AI and machine learning skills and teams, allowing a new generation of creative game design, development, and live operations capabilities, along with becoming a center for the world’s best talent in-game AI.
“We are proud to announce the acquisition of Peltarion. Machine learning technology is moving quickly, and by increasing our investments in this field, we expect to deliver even more creative content to our 250 million monthly players* (Q1 2022) across the globe,” said Tjodolf Sommestad, President of King.
Sommestad further added that they believe that the talented Peltarion team, combined with the powerful technology they have developed, will enable them to serve their players even better with more engaging games and content.
Stockholm-based artificial intelligence company Pelrarion was founded by Luka Crnkovic-Friis and Måns Erlandsson in 2004. The company specializes in offering a graphical cloud platform for collaboratively designing, managing, and deploying deep learning systems at scale. NASA, Tesla, iZettle, General Electric, Dell, BMW, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, and the universities of Harvard, MIT, and Oxford have all leveraged Peltarion’s AI technology.
“The scale and reach of King, with iconic franchises like Candy Crush Saga, is a great match for our technology. The opportunities with AI seem to be endless, and we cannot wait to unlock the potential of working together,” said Luka Crnkovic-Friis, Peltarion CEO.
Ecolibrium, a machine learning-based decarbonization platform, has launched its revolutionary sustainability solution in the UK as the competition to reduce carbon emissions booms across the built environment.
Founded in 2008 at IIM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation, and Entrepreneurship in India, Ecolibrium provides expert advice and technology-driven sustainability solutions. These solutions enable commercial and industrial real estate businesses to decrease energy consumption and ultimately achieve the net-zero carbon goals.
Ecolibrium works on sustainability-led technology product SmartSense which assimilates thousands of internet of things (IoT) data points across the facility’s entire energy infrastructure.
The collected information is then channeled through Ecolibrium’s proprietary machine learning algorithms. In-house subject matter experts have developed these algorithms for over ten years.
Ecolibrium allows customers to visualize the data through a bespoke user interface that avails actionable insights and a blueprint for achieving operational excellence, healthy buildings, and sustainability targets.
This connected infrastructure produces a granular view of the carbon footprint of an asset. This view unlocks inefficiencies and empowers intelligent decision-making while driving a continuous improvement program that delivers empirical sustainability and productivity gains.
According to the CEO of Ecolibrium, the goal of Ecolibrium is to partner with companies and coach them to work smarter by making critical decisions more quickly and consuming less. He added that by doing this at a large scale, Ecolibrium would make a massive impact on the carbon footprint of industrial and commercial assets across the globe.
Ecolibrium contributes to the growth of UK innovation by promoting green job creation and providing tangible economic benefits. The initiative supports the country’s more comprehensive transition to a more sustainable future.
American entrepreneur, Professor Emeritus of computer science, and founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Oren Etzioni steps down from his position in Allen Institute after serving the company for nearly a decade.
According to the plan, he will continue to serve as the company’s CEO till September 30, after which he will become a board member and advisor. Later he will be joining as the technical director of the AI2 Incubator.
AI2 Incubator is an initiative of the Allen Institute for AI that helps entrepreneurs build AI-first startups through leading AI research, support and funding.
Oren Etzioni said, “It has been an honor of a lifetime to help build and lead such an incredible organization as its founding CEO.” He further added that he wants to thank Paul Allen for the chance to serve in this capacity, along with the devoted AI2 team who gave life to a vision and are benefiting the world via their efforts.
Etzioni founded AI2 in January 2014 with late Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen. The Allen Institute For Artificial Intelligence (AI2) is an artificial intelligence research institute and startup incubator.
Deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and the development of common sense AI systems are some of the research areas being pursued at Allen Institute. Etzioni served a crucial role in the company, and under his leadership, AI2 expanded to more than 200 employees.
Ana Mari Cauce, AI2 board member and president of the University of Washington, said, “His legacy includes a commitment to nurturing an inclusive, collaborative culture that attracts and develops highly talented scientists and allows them to thrive.”
Cauce also mentioned that as they start on the next phase of AI2, they are motivated by the global effect AI2 will have and the potential AI represents for people everywhere.
Enterprise Conversational AI Startup Invoca raises $83 million in its recently held series F funding round led by Silver Lake Waterman.
Other investors, such as Hollyport Capital, Kingfisher Investment Advisors, Fenwick & Wes, and several existing investors, also participated in the company’s latest funding round.
The funding has increased Invoca’s market valuation to over $1 billion. According to Invoca, it plans to use the freshly raised capital to further expand and strengthen its conversational intelligence platform.
Invoca serves the world’s biggest consumer brands in areas such as automobile, telecommunications, healthcare, financial services, and real estate. These new additional funds will help the company provide even better services to its global client network.
Managing Director and Group Head, Silver Lake Waterman, Shawn O’Neill, said, “We believe Invoca has an exceptional vision to help marketing and contact center teams transform the customer experience with AI-powered conversation intelligence.”
He further added that the Invoca team has been working hard to achieve the operational rigor and disciplined execution required to flourish in today’s market, and they are excited to work with Invoca in their next chapter of development.
United States-based enterprise conversational AI-providing company Invoca was founded by Colin Kelley, Jason Spievak, and Robert Duva in 2008. Inbound call marketing, call monitoring, call intelligence, and pay-per-call advertising are among the services offered by the organization. To date, Invoca has raised more than $200 million from multiple investors over seven funding rounds.
“When consumers look for value-added expertise in buying the right product or resolving an urgent service issue, they often escalate from digital self-service to speak with a human expert,” said Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca. He also mentioned that they are excited to collaborate with new and existing investors as they innovate in the fast-growing industry for conversational AI.
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has published its new patent quantum computer in China for the general public. The patent is a revolutionary step towards how technology will run in the next 10 years.
The patent is listed under the patent number CN114613758A. It is clear from the patent listing that Huawei has developed a type of quantum chipset and quantum computing device each.
Huawei’s new quantum computing device focuses on solving the current issues of producing quantum chipsets. These issues include the complexity of manufacturing a quantum chipset and the limited yields of the quantum chipsets when compared to the existing mainstream computing chipsets nowadays.
The new quantum chip will be easier to assemble in the future. Also, more units can be successfully produced with higher yields allowing adoption of more market share in the industry.
According to the patent listing, the fundamentals of the architecture of Huawei’s newly developed quantum chipset includes a substrate, a coupling structure, M sub-chips, and a cavity mode suppression structure. Each sub-chip includes N qubits, and M sub-chips are assembled on the surface of the substrate at intervals.
The coupling structure is used to comprehend the interconnection between the M sub-chips.
The cavity mode suppression structure is arranged at the edge of each sub-chip and/or in the space between the M sub-chips. It is used for increasing the cavity mode frequency of the quantum chip.
The M sub-chips in the quantum chip will decrease the pressure of manufacturing and will enhance the production yield. For instance, when a sub-chip is affected, only the sub-chip will be discarded. The overall chipset can be fixed or reused to prevent more electronic waste.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have gained immense popularity over the last few years. There are many reasons for this boom and one of them is that technology allows individuals to own something valuable in the virtual world. To clear the cloud, let us first understand what NFTs are. An NFT is a digital asset that replicates physical items such as art, music, in-game items, and videos. Despite the fact that they have been available since 2014, NFTs are gaining popularity as a common means to purchase and sell digital artwork. Though NFTs are often referred to as similar to cryptocurrencies, they are different. For instance, all units of cryptocurrencies are identical. However, each NFT is fully unique and cannot be swapped like-for-like. With the rising demand for NFTs, there are many marketplaces available on the internet today to buy and sell NFTs in India. In this article, we have selected the top NFT marketplaces in India in 2022.
OpenSea is one of the world’s largest NFT marketplaces that allow users to buy, sell, and discover a variety of digital assets. The marketplace was launched back in 2018 and has earned much reputation in its domain over the years. According to experts, OpenSea holds over 75% of all NFT transactions that occur on the Ethereum Network. To use OpenSea, you must connect your OpenSea account with a wallet like MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and others. Moreover, you can also discover the Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoKitties, Crypto Punks, Decentraland, Doodles, and other well-known NFT assets. Another advantage of purchasing NFTs from OpenSea is the worldwide creators and community, which gives a broader range of options. All these features and advantages make OpenSea one of the best NFT marketplaces in India to buy and sell digital assets in 2022.
WazirX NFT is an Indian marketplace that not only allows trading of NFTs but also cryptocurrencies. It was founded in 2018 and had more than seven million users. The motive behind WazirX’s launch of the NFT marketplace was to provide a platform for regional and local users to buy and sell NFTs in India. Additionally, the platform was also among the first to showcase its inaugural NFT exhibition and musical NFTs. The platform costs customers about 5% in service fees, with the remainder going to the creators. By November 2021, the platform had registered $38 billion in trade in a record year. The platform’s immense popularity makes it one of the best NFT marketplaces in India.
Binance NFT marketplace is one of the largest NFT trading platforms available. Since the launch of the Binance NFT marketplace in June, more than 1000 creators have listed over 2.5 million NFTs on the platform. Binance launched its new NFT Marketplace to help artists in minting and selling their pieces of art. The marketplace has sold 1 million mystery boxes and has a trading volume of $360 million. According to the company, users can create and mint their NFTs in a matter of a few minutes using the platform. Furthermore, users can deposit and withdraw tokens to a compatible wallet or exchange. Binance has strengthened its reputation through collaborations with artists, athletes, news organizations, singers, actresses, and award-winning personalities. The colossal popularity of the platform worldwide makes it one of the most recommendation worthy NFT marketplaces in India for customers willing to trade NFTs.
Bollycoin is a unique marketplace of NFTs that bridges Bollywood and blockchain. According to the company, it plans to auction digital collectibles from the Bollywood Industry. It would provide an innovative way for Bollywood enthusiasts from around the world to own NFTs of their favorite Bollywood films and celebrities. The NFT marketplace gained immense popularity in India last year when it released the Dabangg NFT collection in collaboration with Salman Khan. Additionally, Bollycoin offers posters, movie clips, and stills, among other collectibles. The highly Indianized digital assets available on Bollycoin make it one of the best NFT marketplaces in India in 2022.
Jupiter Meta is India’s first NFT marketplace for art, movies, gaming, music, and others. It gives an immersive digital experience along with tremendous economic, pleasure, and utility value to all stakeholders. The NFT marketplace was founded recently in 2021 to sell NFTs and different creative and cultural sectors embedded within its metaverse. Jupiter Meta is powered by Rubix blockchain technology, which is highly secure, green, and has no gas fees. The company’s goal in India is to broaden the metaverse concept and incorporate everyone as a member of a continuously connected digital world. Jupiter Meta aims to become a Top 10 Metaverse & Curated Marketplace by 2024. The features offered by the NFT marketplace provide a fast user experience, and its India-centric offerings make it one of the best NFT marketplaces in India.
BeyondLife.club is a one-of-a-kind NFT marketplace that connects celebrities with their fans. The company aspires to become the force in changing how art, media, and talent are valued. BeyondLife.club has already teamed up with several of India’s best artists, athletes, music bands, and industry-leading brands to revolutionize the NFT domain in the country. The NFT marketplace received much recognition when it launched NFTs of the Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. During the sale of those NFTs, over six million people were active on the website, and the stocks sold out in just over 50 minutes. Later NFT marketplace launched its second drop with Stan Lee’s co-creation Chakra The Invincible, which sold out in just a few seconds. It can be said with no doubt that BeyondLife.club is a good marketplace to buy NFTs in India in 2022.
BuyUcoin is India’s one of the most secure crypto exchange platforms that also offers users to trade NFTs. It was founded in 2016 and had more than one million users. It has a very user-friendly UI that resembles that of OpenSea. BuyUcoin handles more than $300 million in digital asset transactions. The marketplace supports 130+ Crypto Pairs like BTC-INR, ETH-INR, DOGE-INR, YFI-INR, and much more. The company has said that its mission is to bring cryptocurrency into the hands of all Indians. Customers need to pay a makers fee of 0.24% to buy NFTs through the platform.
Rarible is one of the most popular NFT marketplaces that was launched in 2020. It offers two tokens, namely ERC721 and ERC1155, that allow users to create unique items and create multiple editions of one item, respectively. An additional advantage of Rarible is that it is based on the trusted Ethereum blockchain. The company has collaborated with numerous big brands like Adobe and other artists that have helped Rarible increase its market dominance. The website has a clean and dark-theme UI that provides an immersive browsing experience.
Colexion is Asia’s largest licensed NFT marketplace, allowing digital artists to enter and harness their love for art and creativity. The company is building the world’s largest NFT digital museum, where users will be able to meet celebrities and learn about their lives. According to the company, it is creating a community of digital artists to give them endless growth prospects and a solid platform to enter the metaverse in the form of trump cards. Moreover, the company has partnered with multiple famous athletes like Yuvraj Singh and musicians like Salim Suleiman and others to capture the Indian market of NFT trading. It also has a game platform with sports characters that allows users to trade avatars and other commodities, making it a recommendation worthy NFT marketplace in India.
SolSea is the first open NFT marketplace with integrated minting on the Solana blockchain. This is the best option available for users who might be looking for options to trade NFTs on Solana. An additional advantage of SolSea is that it allows creators to include copyright permissions in their NFTs. SolSea provides several features such as NFTs with embedded licenses (NFT-PROs), Rarity Rank calculation for collections, and wallet funding with FTX-Pay and Moonpay. The platform also receives regular updates to provide customers with more features. It is regarded as one of the top ten NFT marketplaces in the world because of its high trade volume. If you are looking to trade NFTs on Solana, SolSea is the right NFT marketplace in India in 2022.
Crypto.com is a payment and cryptocurrency platform that empowers users to buy, sell, and pay with crypto. The platform also offers customers to trade NFTs seamlessly. Crypto.com NFT is a leading platform for collecting and exchanging NFTs from the fields of art, design, entertainment, and sports. The company is claimed to be overall one of the best NFT Marketplaces in 2022. Crypto.com, founded in 2016, now serves over 10 million users through the world’s fastest-growing crypto app and the Crypto.com Visa Card. The crypto and NFT marketplace have collaborated with multiple high-profile names, such as Boy George and Snoop Dogg, which has helped skyrocket its popularity in different parts of the world.
SimpleMarket is a popular NFT marketplace that is based on the WAX blockchain. WAX was launched in 2017 and had more than 140,000 digital assets to trade. WAX is the leading NFT network and has successfully facilitated the trade of millions of NFTs from partners such as Topps (MLB), Capcom (Street Fighter), Funko, Atari, Sony’s Funimation, and famous films (Princess Bride and SAW), world-renowned entertainers (Deadmau5, Weezer, and William Shatner), and many more. The SimpleMarket platform comes with a user-friendly and straightforward-looking UI that helps customers explore the marketplace.
