Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
Bipartisan Senate group proposes $32B in annual federal funding for AI innovation
A bipartisan group of senators is recommending that the federal government spend at least $32 billion a year on non-defense artificial intelligence innovation. Senators Chuck Schumer, Mike Rounds, Martin Heinrich and Todd Young detailed their proposal in a report published today. The 31-page document is the fruit of discussions with more than 150 AI experts. ...
LanceDB raises $8M to speed up AI models with its open-source vector database
LanceDB Inc., the developer of a database optimized for artificial intelligence models, today disclosed that it has raised a $8 million seed round. CRV led the investment with participation from Essence VC and Swift Ventures. According to LanceDB, its outside funding now stands at $11 million. Before processing data, an AI model turns it into ...
Data management startup Weka nabs $140M at $1.6B valuation
WekaIO Inc., a startup with a data management platform that can store billions of files, has closed a $140 million late-stage investment. The software maker said in its announcement of the Series E. round today that it included not only equity funding but also a secondary stock sale. Valor Equity Partners, an existing backer, led the ...
Alkira reels in $100M for its cloud networking platform
Cloud networking startup Alkira Inc. today announced that it has secured a $100 million Series C funding round led by Tiger Global. The investment, which brings the company’s total outside capital to $176 million, included the participation of NextEquity Partners, Dallas Venture Capital and Geodesic. Returning backers Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and KDT contributed as ...
Meta to shut down its Workplace business communications platform
Meta Platforms Inc. today announced plans to shut down Workplace, an enterprise version of Facebook that competes with Slack, in early 2026. The company notified customers of the move in an email made public by TechCrunch. A spokesperson confirmed the decision following the report, telling Bloomberg that “we are discontinuing Workplace from Meta so we ...
US to raise tariffs on electric vehicles, chips imported from China
The White House today announced plans to significantly raise tariffs on a variety of goods from China including electric vehicles, chips and batteries. The increased levies are expected to affect $18 billion worth of annual imports. Some of the new duties are set to go into effect this year, while others will start applying to ...
ANALYSIS
Longtime AWS executive Matt Garman to succeed Adam Selipsky as CEO
Amazon.com Inc. has named Matt Garman the new chief executive officer of its Amazon Web Services Inc. cloud division. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the leadership change in a memo to employees made public this morning. Garman, a longtime AWS executive who was the first product manager of the Amazon EC2 instance line earlier in ...
Aurora ranks as world’s fastest AI supercomputer in latest TOP500 benchmark
The U.S. Energy Department’s Aurora supercomputer has achieved the highest score yet in a closely-watched artificial intelligence performance test. The speed evaluation was carried out by the TOP500 supercomputing organization, which published its findings today. The group also tested Aurora’s performance across other workloads besides AI applications. It determined that the system is the second-fastest ...
Squarespace to be taken private by Permira in $6.9B acquisition
Private equity firm Permira is acquiring Squarespace Inc., a major provider of website development and hosting tools, in an all-cash transaction worth $6.9 billion. The companies announced the deal today. Squarespace investors are set to receive $44 per share, a 15% premium over the Friday closing price. Squarespace launched in 2003 and raised its first ...
Geomagnetic storm disrupts tractor navigation systems across numerous US farms
A severe geomagnetic storm that hit the Earth over the weekend disrupted the work of many farmers in the U.S. A geomagnetic storm is a disturbance in the Earth’s magnetosphere caused by particles from the Sun. The weekend’s event was caused by a series of phenomena known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs for short. ...