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Google Announces $20 Million In Funding For Scientific AI Research
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
Google announced $20 million in funding for AI scientific research yesterday during the inaugural AI for Science Forum, hosted by the Royal Society and Google DeepMind. The tech giant will also provide $2 million in cloud credits.
In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!
- Google.org announced $22 million in funding for AI scientific research
- The philanthropic organization wants to accelerate AI scientific breakthroughs across the globe
- A team will identify and announce the organizations that will get the financial support
The financial support will be provided by Google.org—the charitable arm of the tech giant—and allocated to non-profit and academic organizations globally that are currently using AI to address complex problems across multiple fields of science.
“We’ll work with leaders internally across our Google DeepMind, Google Research and other AI-focused teams as well as external experts to identify and announce organizations,” states the announcement shared on Google’s blog.
With this new funding, Google.org is focusing on supporting the next AI scientific breakthroughs and is interested in research and investigations related to topics like sustainability, experimental biology, neglected disease research, and materials science.
The tech giant also announced $2 million in Google Cloud Credits as well as pro bono technical expertise from the company’s workers. This new funding adds to the more than $200 million the company has provided to accelerate scientific work.
The company highlighted this year’s Nobel Award in Chemistry, awarded to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for the advanced AI program AlphaFold developed by Google DeepMind, currently being used by over 2 million researchers around the world for different purposes including Parkinson’s treatment and the fight against malaria.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton—a former Google employee.
Other tech giants have been supporting AI developments in science. A few days ago, AWS announced it will provide up to $110 million in credits for scientific researchers to access its cloud data centers.
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- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
The AI startup Perplexity announced new shopping features for premium members in the United States yesterday.
In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!
- Perplexity will now allow premium members in the U.S. to make purchases through the app
- The AI startup launched features and tools including Buy with Pro, Snap to Shop, and Discover the best product
- The company also created a program for retailers, Perplexity Merchant, to get products featured through the AI platform
“Perplexity is now a one-stop solution where you can research and purchase products,” states the public announcement on the startup’s website. “It marks a big leap forward in how we serve our users – empowering seamless native actions right from an answer. Shopping online just got 10x more easy and fun.”
The Buy with Pro button allows U.S. users to check out fast and through the app in a one-click checkout process with the stores that allow it. Perplexity Pro users will have to previously set and save their billing and address information to get the most out of the feature. “We’ve built a first-of-its-kind AI commerce experience,” reads the document.
The Buy With Pro program includes free shipping and the company clarified that the chatbot will redirect users directly to the seller’s website when the Buy with Pro feature is not available.
Snap to Shop allows users to share an image of the product they want to purchase—without a description or a name—and Perplexity’s chatbot finds the product—or similar—as well as the options currently available in the market.
The Perplexity Merchant program allows big retailers to share product descriptions and more relevant information about their products for better opportunities to get featured on the platform, insights, as well as access to the API and the Buy with Pro integration program.
The AI company is close to reaching a $9 billion valuation , as it is at the final stage of a $500 million deal.
