AI Daily: Broadcom jumps on news of OpenAI partnership

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

OPENAI PARTNERSHIP: OpenAI and Broadcom (AVGO) announced a collaboration for 10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators. OpenAI will design the accelerators and systems, which will be developed and deployed in partnership with Broadcom. By designing its own chips and systems, OpenAI can embed what it’s learned from developing frontier models and products directly into the hardware, unlocking new levels of capability and intelligence. The racks, scaled entirely with Ethernet and other connectivity solutions from Broadcom, will meet surging global demand for AI, with deployments across OpenAI’s facilities and partner data centers. OpenAI and Broadcom have long-standing agreements on the co-development and supply of the AI accelerators. The two companies have signed a term sheet to deploy racks incorporating the AI accelerators and Broadcom networking solutions.

NEW HIRE: Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Andrew Tulloch is joining Meta (META), The Wall Street Journal’s Keach Hagey and Meghan Bobrowsky report. Meta has recruited over 50 AI researchers, engineers and other employees, restructuring its AI teams into the new Superintelligence Labs division. Tulloch previously worked at Meta for 11 years, then OpenAI, before co-founding Thinking Machines Lab this year. The WSJ previously reported that Tulloch was offered a pay package from Meta that could have been worth as much as $1.5B with top bonuses and extraordinary stock performance but declined it, and a Meta spokesman previously called the description of the offer “inaccurate and ridiculous” and said that the size of any compensation package is predicated on a stock rising.

PROMPT AI DEAL: Apple (AAPL) is in advanced talks to acquire top talent and technology from computer vision startup Prompt AI, CNBC’s Lora Kolodny reports. Leadership at Prompt told employees of the pending transaction at an all-hands meeting on Thursday, and said that those who don’t end up joining Apple will be paid a reduced salary, and encouraged to apply for open roles at the company, according to audio that was accessed by CNBC. The 11-person company was approached by other potential suitors, including Elon Musk’s xAI and Neuralink, executives said in the meeting.

NEXT-GEN AI DATA CENTERS: ABB (ABBNY) announced that it is accelerating the development of gigawatt-scale next-generation data centers in collaboration with Nvidia (NVDA). “Innovation will focus on the development and deployment of cutting-edge power solutions needed to create high-efficiency, scalable power delivery for future AI workloads. The research and development projects will support NVIDIA’s planned introduction of 800 VDC power architecture for 1 megawatt server racks,” ABB stated. “ABB is leading the development of the key new power distribution technologies that will create the next generation of data centers. We have been an early investor in the cutting-edge UPS, DC and solid-state electronics that will enable data centers to stay ahead of AI’s growing power demands. This collaboration supporting the development of 800 VDC architectures for future data centers is one of the many ways we are engaging with the data center community to serve the needs of this dynamic market,” said Giampiero Frisio, President, ABB Electrification.

WORLD MODELS: Elon Musk’s xAI is building world models for use in gaming and robotics, and has hired two AI researchers, Zeeshan Patel and Ethan He, from Nvidia to work on them, The Financial Times’ Cristina Criddle reports. xAI will release a “great AI-generated game before the end of next year,” Musk says.