Technology

➚ MOVE FAST: xAI. Elon Musk’s venture raised $6 billion and is planning a mega expansion of its supercomputer in Memphis, with at least one million GPUs. That’s 10x the current amount, which is already an eye-popping figure that took innovative thinking to pull off.

➘ BREAK THINGS: SpaceX. Donald Trump’s favorite entrepreneur is a big winner of the US election, but concerns over his potential ties to Russia may draw bipartisan scrutiny. A Ukrainian-American nonprofit wants the government to deny SpaceX’s request to put more Starlink satellites in orbit. It probably won’t derail SpaceX, but it could be a bumpy ride.

Weather apps have been known to mispredict Mother Nature, but Google DeepMind has launched an AI-based weather prediction model that it says can more accurately forecast up to 15 days. It also sheds light on extreme conditions faster than the traditional systems used globally.

The tool, called GenCast, was trained on decades of data from the top model used by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting. When put to the test, GenCast beat that model on more than 97% of the 1,320 weather variables, and produced stronger 15-day global forecasts within eight minutes (compared to hours normally), according to a new study published in Nature.

Still, GenCast needs to be tested on extreme weather events, and some scientists prefer a hybrid model, such as the UK weather service, which is already incorporating its own AI into its current physics-based model, The Financial Times reported.

SoftBank set up funds to invest $8 billion in Latin American tech startups in 2019 and 2021, an unprecedented capital infusion that changed the regional landscape. This year, Masayoshi Son’s firm is pumping more money into the region, including new AI investments. Alex Szapiro is SoftBank Group’s head of Brazil and managing partner, and Juan Franck is managing partner at SoftBank Latin America Funds.

Reed Albergotti: SoftBank has a reputation for coming in with lots of money and flooding the Latin American market. What do you say to that criticism?

Alex Szapiro: SoftBank actually crossed a lot of lines for the good, inventing a market that didn’t exist in the region and cutting $30, $40, $50 million checks for a 10% or 15% position in those companies. And not only to invest in the first round, but also in the following rounds, so those companies could develop.

A lot of funds came after SoftBank. Some stayed, but I think a majority, which we call tourist funds, when the crisis came, they left.

Juan Franck: In 2021, we all made mistakes in terms of valuation, which got adjusted in 2022. But in 2021, there was an average annual investment of $17 billion, and we were a fraction of that. I think we were part of the craziness of 2021, but by no means were we the trigger, or the ones to blame for that.

Some say Latin America is not adopting generative AI as quickly as other parts of the world. Do you think that’s true?

Alex: There’s no question that there are a lot of things going on, more on foundational models, that I think is going to be very hard for us to see in LatAm. The US, Asia, Israel, and some of the other countries are ahead of their time in terms of everything that has been developed. And companies like Perplexity, or others that we’re very close to, like OpenAI.

On the foundational models, I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of activity in the region, given all the CAPEX necessary in terms of processing, in terms of data centers. Although there’s one great thing about LatAm, which is the cost of energy.

But having said that, there are things on the application [front], that’s where I think we’ll see a lot. Let me give you some examples. We invested in Asaas, a company that handles collections for [small- and medium-sized businesses.]

For SMEs, one of the most important things is getting paid. If you charge a 1% take rate on all the invoicing of the company, it is a great business, but it’s also really great value for an SME, which sometimes has delays on their invoices. Brazil, Mexico have interest rates of about 10%, 12% a year, which is 1% a month. So just imagine that a month’s delay costs you at least 1%. This is the kind of trade-off that we need to think of all the time.

Another example is a company called Blip. It’s what we call a conversational platform. In LatAm, 99% of the things that happen in the region happen on WhatsApp, like WeChat in China.

This company has done a fantastic job serving big corporations and SMEs on all the communication that the companies have with their customers, starting more on the customer service area. Once they automated this, they said, ‘What if we also do e-commerce on WhatsApp?’ where basically, if you’re talking to Nestlé and you want to buy an espresso machine, you just start a conversation. You say, ‘I’m looking for a machine. It is for my home. I like this color,’ and then the alternatives for you to choose pop up, then comes the link, and you can pay.

I’m just talking about the tip of the iceberg in terms of the things they’re developing, but this is an example of a company that has access to data because they are allowed to see all the conversations between the corporations and their customers. [WhatsApp owner] Meta isn’t allowed. So even for Meta, this is a great asset. [Blip] is now considered one of the preferred partners in the world in terms of what they are developing for WhatsApp.

I’m just putting some examples where everybody thinks LatAm is behind the game on AI, but there are a lot of things that we only see in the region that AI is actually solving much faster than probably other parts of the world.

The drop in market value that influencer “Hawk Tuah Girl” Haliey Welch’s memecoin experienced over allegations of insider trading, which Welch denies. After Wednesday’s launch, its value rose to $490 million before plunging.

Microsoft launched Thursday a preview of a new feature called Copilot Vision that essentially follows what you see online and offers guidance based on your verbal questions or commands.

It could be useful. Let’s say you’re shopping for a car and have visited six different websites. You could ask this AI to compare all the specs of the cars you’ve seen.

But utility isn’t really what this new feature is aimed at. It’s supposed to be a buddy whom you can bounce ideas off of, like recommending a similar vehicle you haven’t considered.

It has the clear stamp of Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who joined Microsoft in March to lead Copilot. His thing is making AI more empathetic, which is already manifesting in their new products.

There’s also something interesting about using AI to make sitting in front of a computer feel more social and less solitary. Before trying the new Copilot feature, I hadn’t really thought of it that way. 

Mixed Signals is back for Season 2, and this time we’re following the money in the ever-changing media business. With podcasters and YouTubers dominating the election, is this the end of legacy media? And, can advertisers keep up with audiences’ evolving media habits?

Ben and Nayeema bring on author, New Yorker writer, and media savant Ken Auletta, who has been examining the industry since the ’90s. They discuss whether this moment feels different from past disruptions, how Elon Musk is reshaping media, and Ken’s, uh, colorful recollections of flying with Ted Turner, his girlfriend, and their bed.

AI is infiltrating everything, and dating is no different. A few months back, we wrote about a chatbot that lets singles date shy ghosts and werewolf characters, but the most popular dating sites are stirring up AI cocktails as well. No, there aren’t going to be fictional sexbots to flirt with on Tinder (as far as we know), but there will be AI-powered dating coaches and smarter algorithms.

“If you’re really into outdoorsy people and we see that someone else’s photo is in the outdoors — [it’s] making those kinds of connections, which right now, we don’t make,” Hinge chief Justin McLeod told Semafor’s Rachyl Jones. “And it’s feedback on tactical things. ‘Hey, you’ve been messaging this person for a while. It might be time to ask them on a date.’”

But Hinge and other dating sites are running up against burnt-out singles who are increasingly critical of online dating, and it is unclear if adding more technology will bring them back. In recent years, Hinge expanded its number of subscription tiers and purchase offerings — such as $4 ‘roses’ users can send to the most popular profiles — but those moves have also drawn criticism that the app hides compatible partners behind a paywall. (McLeod says it doesn’t. “It’s a very delicate system…. If we gave everyone unlimited roses and boosts for free, they wouldn’t mean anything anymore.”)

McLeod is counting on AI to change the dating game over the next few years. “Advances that will happen in terms of our ability to match you up really intelligently with someone great — I don’t think searching for someone in real life will hold a candle to that,” he told Semafor.

TikTok just received a legal blow. An appeals court in DC ruled to uphold a law forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest of its US operations or face a ban.

Here’s a refresher: President Joe Biden signed the rare bipartisan bill in April over national security concerns for the app’s Chinese ownership. TikTok then filed suit against the government, arguing the law violates the users’ freedom of speech.

TikTok has already announced it plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, conveniently during an administration change that’s seen as more favorable for the platform.

President-elect Donald Trump, once a staunch critic of the app and supporter of a ban, recently reversed course, vowing to “save TikTok” and describing himself as “a big star” on the social site.

Even if TikTok ultimately loses, there’s a chance it won’t comply with the ban, resorting to export-control rules to avoid selling its powerful algorithm, a former State Department case officer told The Washington Post. This could embolden other companies to challenge the government’s authority, The Post argued.

Rwanda is pushing ahead with its bid to be added to the lucrative Formula 1 race calendar, Semafor’s Alexis Akwagyiram scooped.

The initiative is part of a wider drive to double down on sports events as a central plank of its economic growth plan. “We have demonstrated the capacity to host big sporting events,” Rwanda’s foreign minister told Semafor.