Traceable raises $60 million in Series B Funding Round

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May 5, 2022

End-to-end cloud app security solution developing startup Traceable raises $60 million in its recently held series B funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Tiger Global.

Other investors like Unusual Ventures & BIG Labs also participated in the company’s latest funding round. This funding has now increased the startup’s market valuation to over $450 million.

According to the company, it plans to use the freshly raised capital to invest more in product development and research, increase its sales and marketing teams, and expand global sales.

“API security has become a major security and compliance concern for most companies. Traceable offers a fundamentally differentiated solution that provides coverage across the full DevSecOps software lifecycle – from API development and testing to runtime protection,” said Steve Harrick, General Partner, IVP.

He further added that Jyoti Bansal and Sanjay Nagaraj, the company’s founders, are seasoned entrepreneurs with whom they have had the pleasure of working in the past as they pay attention to client needs and know how to produce software at scale.

United States-based technology company Traceable was founded by Jyoti Bansal and Sanjay Nagaraj in 2018. Traceable specializes in providing end-to-end distributed tracing, cloud-native integrations, and advanced behavioral analytics to provide modern application and API security.

The company’s one-of-a-kind platform called Traceable AI is the first API security platform that identifies, maintains, and secures APIs for enterprise-level businesses.

Traceable uses machine learning technology to analyze data from the user and session to the application code to learn normal application behavior and detect activities that deviate from it. To date, the startup has raised more than $79 million from multiple investors over two funding rounds.

“Traceable AI applies the power of machine learning and distributed tracing to truly understand how an application really works in the context of the business, and therefore, be able to detect anomalies and block threats to keep customers secure and resilient against next-gen attacks,” said Jyoti Bansal.

BMU announces BSc CS with specialization in Cyber Security, Data Analytics, Data Science, and AI

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Dipayan Mitra

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May 5, 2022

BML Munjal University (BMU) announces the launch of its new BSc Computer Science (CS) course with a specialization in cyber security, big data analytics, data science, and artificial intelligence (AI).

BMU’s new three-year-long course will begin the first batch from the academic session 2022-2023.

According to the university, the course curriculum will adhere to the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP), the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF), and the University Grants Commission’s choice-based credit systems and result-based education.

The School of Engineering and Technology at BMU will offer this BSc degree program to students.

Anirban Chakraborti, Dean, School of Engineering Technology, said, “Understanding the talent gap in Data Science and AI in India and in response to the recent demands in the industry 4.0, we at BMU have come up with the course.”

He further added that this course is founded on the notion of interdisciplinary immersion experience learning, with an emphasis on systems thinking and a choice-based curriculum with optional electives.

The global market is booming and needs new talents in cutting-edge technologies like data science and AI. However, not all institutes are offering courses that cater to this need. BMU’s new BSc course will impart critical knowledge and skills that learners require to kick start their careers in the sector of new-age technologies.

Candidates must have a Higher Secondary Certificate (10+2) in the Science stream with an aggregate score of 60 percent and Mathematics as one of the compulsory subjects to be eligible for admission. Students who have not taken any conventional examinations will be required to take the BMU-SAT, a BMI-administered standardized aptitude test.

Interested candidates can learn more and apply for the course from the official website of BMU.

Meta launches Large Language Models for AI Researchers

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Dipayan Mitra

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May 5, 2022

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, launched Large Language Models to help artificial intelligence (AI) researchers.

With this new development, researchers can now easily access OPT-175B, a vast language model with 175 billion parameters trained on publicly available data sets.

Large language models, according to Meta, are natural language processing (NLP) systems with hundreds of billion parameters that have revolutionized NLP and AI research in recent years.

The language models demonstrate an incredible new ability to write creative content, perform simple math problems, answer reading comprehension tests, and more after being trained on a large and varied text volume.

Meta is making OPT-175B, and the codebase used to train and deploy the model available to the public utilizing only 16 NVIDIA V100 data center GPUs. Full research access to large language models is frequently limited to a “few well-resourced labs,” says the company.

Meta mentioned in a blog, “We believe the entire AI community-academic researchers, civil society, policymakers, and industry — must work together to develop clear guidelines around responsible AI in general and responsible large language models in particular, given their centrality in many downstream language applications.”

The blog further stated that Meta thinks that releasing OPT-175B and smaller-scale baselines will broaden the range of voices defining the ethical implications of such technologies.

Moreover, Meta designed OPT-175B with energy efficiency in mind, training a model of this scale with only 1/7th the carbon footprint of GPT-3 and also released a set of smaller-scale baseline models that were trained on the same data set and used similar settings as OPT-175B, allowing researchers to investigate the influence of size on its own.

Interested individuals can send requests to access OPT-175B through a request form.

SoundCloud acquires AI Music firm Musiio

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Dipayan Mitra

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May 4, 2022

World’s one of the most popular social music platforms, SoundCloud acquires cutting-edge AI music company Musiio. Neither company provided any information regarding the valuation or terms of this recently signed acquisition deal.

The acquisition of Musiio will allow SoundCloud to expand its music intelligence capabilities that will help the company better harness its vast data to identify what’s next in music trends and talent.

Musiio will now play a vital role in SoundCloud’s discovery experience and help to identify talent and trends ahead of anyone else.

President of SoundCloud, Eliah Seton, said, “SoundCloud hosts more music from more creators than any platform on the planet. Acquiring Musiio accelerates our strategy to better understand how that music is moving in a proprietary way, which is critical to our success.”

Seton further added that they are thrilled to be working with Hazel and Aron (of Musiio) and to welcome Musiio’s incredible team of innovators to the SoundCloud family.

Singapore-based artificial intelligence company for the Music Industry, Musiio, was founded by Aron Pettersson and Hazel Savage in 2018. Musiio specializes in providing a technology that focuses on B2B audio reference search, automatic tagging, and playlisting capabilities for the music industry.

Musiio claims to be able to manage music using AI in a cost-effective, quick, and scalable manner, either through APIs or custom dashboard solutions. To date, the firm has raised $1 million from investors like Wavemaker Partners and Entrepreneur First over two funding rounds.

“SoundCloud is not only a legendary household name but also an artist forward business that I believe is the future of the new, holistic music industry,” said CEO of Musiio, Hazel Savage. Hazel also mentioned that she is delighted that Musiio has now joined SoundCloud after four years of establishment.

Scientists Engineer a Plastic Degrading Enzyme Thanks to AI

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Osheen Jain

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May 4, 2022

Scientists at the University of Texas, Austin, announced that they engineered Hydrolase, a plastic degrading enzyme with help of AI. It’s an enzyme that can effectively break down plastics such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This enzyme can successfully break down PET plastic in under 24 hours.

Hal Alper, a lead researcher in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at UT Austin, said that this new enzyme brings various recycling possibilities. And not just in the waste management industry, but in all sectors to improve their plastic recycling. Han also said that we could begin to describe a true circular plastics economy with a more sustainable enzyme.

PET accounts for 12% of man-made solid waste and is one of the most common plastics found in products like disposable food trays and soda bottles. Previous attempts to break down PET have been constrained by factors such as the enzyme’s vulnerability to temperature and sluggish reaction rates.

However, with this robust Hydrolase enzyme, the researchers of UT Austin were able to break down mixed color and clear products of PET completely. The researchers are confident that this new enzyme will withstand temperature variations in non-laboratory conditions.

Researchers said that this plastic degrading enzyme would be able to clean plastic landfills and waste plants when used in sufficient quantities. Less than 10% of the world’s plastic waste is recycled, whereas the rest pollutes the environment, water, air, and food chain.

Researchers used an ML model to generate mutations of PETase that allow the degradation of PET. The model predicted mutations in these enzymes that would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerizing waste plastic at low temperatures. To prove the effectiveness of the Hydrolase enzyme, researchers demonstrated that FAST-PETase was able to almost completely degrade untreated, postconsumer-PET from 51 different thermoformed products in one week.

Sandbox AQ teams up with EY and Deloitte for Quantum Tech and AI

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Dipayan Mitra

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May 4, 2022

Enterprise Software as a Service provider Sandbox AQ teams up with Ernst & Young (EY) and Deloitte for quantum tech and artificial intelligence (AI).

As a part of this partnership, customers of EY and Deloitte will now enjoy the benefits of Sandbox’s quantum AI options.

Sandbox AQ, according to the company, will enable partnered organizations to add practical AI and quantum technology solutions from Sandbox AQ to their systems integration and implementation experience.

The newly announced collaboration aims to assist organizations of various sizes in addressing computationally intensive challenges, along with creating competitive advantages for their businesses.

CEO and Global Chairman of EY, Carmine Di Sibio, said, “Advances in quantum computing and AI technologies are happening with remarkable speed and have the potential to address the most complex business challenges across all industries. EY operates at this intersection of business and technology, and I am looking forward to welcoming the Sandbox AQ team to the EY ecosystem of alliance partners.”

Sibio further added that they could provide global clients with the vision and expertise required to leverage advanced computation to drive and protect business value.

United States-based enterprise SaaS company that provides AI and quantum computing solutions, Sandbox AQ, was founded in 2016. Sandbox AQ modules enable post-quantum cryptography in line with emerging standards in this field. Sandbox AQ also provides simulation software to help speed up material science development, drug discovery, and other HPC tasks.

“Today’s largest multinationals are looking for innovation breakthroughs while simultaneously combatting security threats,” said CEO of Sandbox AQ, Jack D. Hidary. He also mentioned that their strategic partnership with EY will bring advanced technology, deep quantum expertise, and value-added solutions to their global customer base, assisting in resolving computationally-intensive problems while mitigating critical threats.

“Leveraging Sandbox AQ’s advanced technology, deep quantum knowledge, and solutions together with Deloitte’s seasoned cybersecurity and quantum advisory professionals and complementary technology-enabled solutions will help organizations mitigate risk and protect operations during the quantum transformation,” added Hidary.

India and Germany to work together on AI Startups and Research

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Dipayan Mitra

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May 4, 2022

On Tuesday, India and Germany agreed to collaborate on artificial intelligence (AI) startups and AI research.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, and his German counterpart Bettina Stark-Watzinger revealed this new development during a meeting.

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds promise for #StartUps, healthcare and Data procurement. During bilateral talks, proposed to German Minister for Education & Research, Ms. Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Indo-German collaboration in joint projects related to AI. pic.twitter.com/EbOeeprdCb
— Dr Jitendra Singh (@DrJitendraSingh) May 3, 2022

In addition to supporting AI startups and research, both the countries also promised to join hands to increase the adoption of a higher degree of application of AI in sustainability and healthcare.

Jitendra Singh expressed satisfaction at the meeting in Berlin with the ongoing science and technology cooperation between India and Germany, which is one of the strategic pillars of the bilateral relationship.

According to officials, an Indo-German call for proposals will be issued soon, which will invite proposals from researchers and industry. The two countries have already begun mapping each other’s strengths in areas such as artificial intelligence application in sustainability and healthcare.

Officials said, “There are a lot of scopes to work together in Artificial Intelligence, for which experts on two sides have already met. An Indo-German call for proposals for this would be raised soon, inviting proposals from researchers and industry.”

Apart from artificial intelligence, India and Germany are also working closely together in multiple areas such as electric mobility, cyber-physical systems, quantum technologies, future manufacturing, green hydrogen fuel, and deep ocean research, mentioned Dr. Jitendra Singh.

Moreover, both Ministers expressed satisfaction with the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India and the German Research Foundation (DFG) to aid the International Research Training Groups (IRTG) program, which will help strengthen cooperation in capacity building for Indian and German students pursuing Ph.D.

Registrations are open for the IIT Delhi DS ML course

By

Osheen Jain

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May 4, 2022

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, has opened registrations for its data science and machine learning online certificate program. This is IIT Delhi’s fourth online course in DS and ML and launched under IIT Delhi’s Continuing Education Program.

Interested candidates can apply for this online program up to 16th May 2022. The course duration is 6 months, and candidates will be awarded a certificate on completion. To apply for this course, candidates will have to register themselves on the IIT Delhi portal and upload all the required documents.

IIT Delhi will announce a list of shortlisted candidates by 21st May 2022. The shortlisted candidates will have to pay a booking amount to block their seats within 5 days of the announcement. The booking amount is INR 19,000 + GST, whereas the complete program fee is INR 1,25,000 + GST which will be due in two installments of INR 50,000 + GST on July 10, 2022, and Oct 10, 2022.

The eligibility criteria for this IIT Delhi DS ML course is that candidates should have completed their class 12th examination or hold a diploma as of June 30, 2022. Candidates who have completed their class 12th examination must have passed with at least 50% marks to be eligible for this course.

This program will cover the following modules: Data science essentials, statistics for data science, optimization for machine learning, machine learning and deep learning, and communicating data and analysis. The course also has a project component. Interested candidates can learn more about this program by reading the official brochure.

This program is for early and mid-level professionals interested in gaining a cutting-edge perspective on data science and machine learning technologies. Professionals who undertake or oversee software development or machine learning projects in their companies can also apply for this course.

Indian AI Interviewing platform BarRaiser secures $4.2 million funding

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Dipayan Mitra

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May 4, 2022

Indian AI-powered recruitment and interviewing platform providing startup BarRaiser secures $4.2 million in its recently held seed funding round led by 021 Capital and Global Founders Capital. Several other angel investors also participated in the funding round.

According to the company, it plans to use the freshly raised funds to expand its market reach and scale its engineering and data science teams to meet the rising demand for its SaaS and Interview community products.

Bengaluru-based startup BarRaiser was founded in 2020 with the goal of helping organizations hire exceptional talent faster while conducting structured and fair interviews.

To make the interviewing process smarter and more effective, BarRaiser employs an innovative interviewing platform, data-driven analytics, and the assistance of hundreds of experts from various parts of the world.

Founder of 021 Capital, Sailesh Tulshan, said, “BarRaiser is creating an awesome candidate experience with their transparent and structured interview process. Companies can now hire at a significantly faster pace without putting pressure on internal teams.”

He further added that this has also aided their rapid growth, with top brands gaining access to BarRaiser’s rockstar team of interviewers.

The company’s high-end platform allows its clients to schedule candidate interviews at any hour, utilizing a global community of more than 800 recognized experts from leading companies.

BarRaise’s platform comes with multiple features such as interview templates, auto-scheduling features, video interviews, debriefs, and AI-powered analytics that allows companies to conduct quick, fair, transparent, and efficient interviews. Interested individuals can visit the official website of BarRaiser to book a demo of the platform.

“We are working with 250+ leading tech companies and are seeing continuously growing demand across the globe. This financing round will help us expand our reach and make additional investments in technology that helps close the gap between talent and opportunity,” said CEO of BarRaiser, Avinash Saxena.

ISMC to set up a $3 billion Semiconductor Fabrication Unit in Karnataka

By

Osheen Jain

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May 4, 2022

ISMC Semiconductor fabrication unit India

The state government said that the International Semiconductor Consortium (ISMC) would invest $3 billion to set up a semiconductor fabrication unit in Karnataka. ISMC is a joint venture between Israel’s Tower Semiconductor and Abu Dhabi-based Next Orbit Ventures. Intel Corp, the U.S. chip giant, has announced plans to acquire Tower.

ISMC has proposed a 65-nanometer analog semiconductor fabrication unit in Karnataka that will generate over 10,000 indirect and 1,500 direct jobs in Karnataka over the next seven years. The ISMC has requested 150 acres of land in Mysuru’s Kochanahalli Industrial area to build the plant. This will be the first and largest semiconductor fab unit to be set up under the Central Government’s Semiconductor Mission.

India has been trying to strengthen its position in the sector and get major semiconductor firms to set up in the country. The Indian government has also established a production-linked incentive scheme (PLI) for Rs. 76,000 crores for large chip manufacturers.

Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Union Finance Minister, recently visited the United States and urged the semiconductor companies such as Western Digital Micron tech and AMD to consider investing in India while also enjoying the PLI incentive.

Vedanta, an Indian company, has also applied for the PLI scheme besides ISMC. The government reported that five more semiconductor companies have applied to set up their industries in February alone, bringing a total investment of Rs. 1.53 trillion.

ISMC director Ajay Jalan and EV Ramana Reddy, the additional chief secretary for IT and biotechnology, signed the MoU in the presence of Basavaraj Bommai, Karnataka’s chief minister. Bommai said that the MoU is a significant step considering the rising competition among Indian states to attract semiconductor fabrication units.