Advsr AI Spotlight
Highlighting notable AI moves at the intersection of strategic operating companies and emerging startups. Big ideas in the works.
Strategic Deployments of AI
- G42, an artificial intelligence and cloud computing company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Cisco to advance artificial intelligence innovation and infrastructure development across public and private sectors
- AMD, a semiconductor company that designs and develops graphics units, processors, and media solutions, and HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia’s new AI enterprise, announced an agreement to build AI infrastructure, including a network of AMD-based AI computing centers stretching from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States
- HUMAIN, the new full AI value chain subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, announced a strategic partnership with NVIDIA. HUMAIN will deploy the NVIDIA Omniverse platform to drive acceleration of the new era of physical AI and robotics through simulation, optimization and operation of physical environments by new human-AI-led solutions
- NetApp, an intelligent data infrastructure company, announced the release of NetApp AIPod Mini with Intel, a joint solution designed to streamline enterprise adoption of AI inferencing
- Philips and NVIDIA partnered to build a foundational model for MRI, powered by NVIDIA’s AI computing platform. The collaboration aims to develop a solution that can be integrated into existing MR workflows. Philips will build on NVIDIA’s VISTA-3D, a specialized interactive foundation model for 3D medical imaging and MAISI, a state-of-the-art 3D model designed to generate high-quality synthetic images with or without anatomical annotations
- Twilio announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Microsoft to accelerate adoption of conversational AI solutions for customer engagement. The two companies will collaborate on developing conversational AI customer engagement solutions built on Microsoft Azure AI Foundry and Twilio’s customer engagement platform that combines communications, contextual data, and AI
- Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine, announced a partnership with PayPal to power agentic commerce across its Perplexity Pro platform. Starting this summer in the U.S., consumers can check out instantly with PayPal or Venmo when they ask Perplexity to find products, book travel, or buy tickets
- Le Monde announced the signing of a new agreement with Perplexity, allowing for the use of its content to generate answers to questions so that Perplexity users can find the source of answers in Le Monde’s editorial content
- Mastech Digital,, an AI-driven Data and Analytics company, announced an expanded strategic partnership with Informatica, a leader in enterprise cloud data management, to deliver industry- and process-level AI-led solutions for clients worldwide
- Exabeam, a provider of intelligence and automation that powers security operations, announced a strategic partnership with AVANT, a Technology Services Distributor, to accelerate access to AI-driven security operations
- The Greater Omaha Chamber partnered with Scott Data Center to provide local businesses, especially small and mid-sized firms, access to Scott Data’s AI computing tools and consulting services. Chamber members will also be eligible for discounted AI services and startups can apply to an AI incubator program operated by Scott Data. It will also be part of the sales pitch for companies considering a move to Omaha
Strategic and AI Startup Collaborations
- Kore.ai, a provider of advanced AI, signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services. Kore.ai has integrated its agent AI platform and business solutions with AWS services like Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q, and Amazon Connect
- ZeroTrusted.ai, a zero-trust platform purpose-built for AI systems, partnered with the Center for Cyber Diplomacy and Leadership and George Washington University School of Business to deliver advanced AI security, privacy, reliability, and ethics training across Africa
- nureal.ai, a provider of AI-powered software solutions, partnered with Juganu, a provider of intelligent, edge-based infrastructure for Smart Cities and Retail, to deliver integrated smart city and retail solutions across the United States
- Hippocratic AI, a provider of safety-focused generative AI agents for healthcare, announced a partnership with EUCALIA, a Tokyo-based healthcare transformation company focused on optimizing clinical operations and advancing care delivery, to launch a Japanese-language generative AI healthcare agent for non-diagnostic, patient-facing clinical tasks
- CeADAR, the National Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence and the European Digital Innovation Hub for AI in Ireland, partnered with Equal1, a hardware development laboratories company, to drive Irish competitiveness in artificial intelligence and quantum computing
- Trellis, a provider of trial court data and insights, partnered with international labor and employment law firm Fisher Phillips to integrate its generative AI built for trial court litigation, Trellis AI, into the firm’s daily case alerts
AI Startup Acquisitions
- Red Hat, the open-source software subsidiary of IBM, acquired Israeli artificial intelligence startup Jounce, developer of a platform for deploying, running, and monitoring complex AI systems
- Orca Security, a cloud security company, acquired Opus, a provider of agentic AI-powered cloud security remediation and prevention
- Databricks acquired Neon, a developer-first, serverless Postgres company, to deliver serverless Postgres for developers and AI agents
- Salesforce acquired Convergence.ai, an AI agent company recognized for developing advanced systems that perform complex, human-like tasks in digital environments
- Veea, a provider of edge computing and AI-driven solutions, acquired substantially all of the technology of AI-enabled smart spaces provider Crowdkeep
- Edtech company Echo360 acquired GoReact, a provider of AI-powered video-based skill assessment and feedback
- Coupa, provider of AI-native total spend management, acquired Croatia-based Cirtuo, an AI-powered category management company
- Triumph Financial, a financial and technology company focused on payments, factoring, intelligence and banking solutions for the transportation industry, completed its acquisition of Greenscreens.ai, provider of pricing infrastructure and market insights for the freight industry
- Perion Network, provider of technology solving for the complexities of modern advertising, acquired Greenbids, an AI platform that creates custom algorithms for campaign-level optimization across walled garden platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, as well as leading DSPs such as Google DV360 and The Trade Desk
- Virtana, a provider of deep hybrid-infrastructure observability, acquired Zenoss, a real-time IT service monitoring company and provider of AI-powered event intelligence
- Together AI, an AI Acceleration Cloud company, acquired Refuel.ai, a specialist in transforming unstructured data into structured, high-quality datasets for AI applications
- PAR Retail, a division of c-store technology company PAR Technology, acquired GoSkip, a self-checkout vendor, from retail artificial intelligence firm Standard AI
- Monda, an all-in-one data monetization platform, acquired Amplify Data, a data delivery platform, to power customizable data sharing for AI
- Press Ganey Forsta, a provider of experience measurement, data analytics, and insights, acquired InMoment, a customer experience technology company with expertise in AI, natural language processing, and cross-industry solutions
AI Outtakes
- A Greek woman reportedly divorced her husband of 12 years after ChatGPT, based solely on its “interpretation” of coffee grounds, suggested he was being unfaithful. Followed the rising trend of tasseography, or coffee ground readings, she asked ChatGPT to “analyze” remnants in their coffee cups. According to the AI’s interpretation, a mystery woman was actively seeking to dismantle their family. Spurred by these claims, the wife initiated divorce proceedings without notifying her husband
Disclaimer: This information is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute any form of endorsement, recommendation, or advice. Links to third party websites are provided for reference and convenience purposes. This information has not been independently verified.
