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Intel continues to snap up startups to build out its machine learning and AI operations. In the newest transfer, TechCrunch has realized that the chip large has acquired Cnvrg.io, an Israeli firm that has constructed and operates a platform for information scientists to build and run machine learning fashions, which can be utilized to prepare and observe a number of fashions and run comparisons on them, build suggestions and extra.
Intel confirmed the acquisition to us with a brief be aware. “We can confirm that we have acquired Cnvrg,” a spokesperson mentioned. “Cnvrg will be an independent Intel company and will continue to serve its existing and future customers.” Those prospects embrace Lightricks, ST Unitas and Playtika.
Intel shouldn’t be disclosing any monetary phrases of the deal, nor who from the startup will be a part of Intel. Cnvrg, co-founded by Yochay Ettun (CEO) and Leah Forkosh Kolben, had raised $eight million from buyers that embrace Hanaco Venture Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners, and PitchBook estimates that it was valued at round $17 million in its final spherical.
It was solely a week in the past that Intel made one other acquisition to enhance its AI enterprise, additionally within the space of machine learning modeling: it picked up SigOpt, which had developed an optimization platform to run machine learning modeling and simulations.
While SigOpt relies out of the Bay Area, Cnvrg is in Israel, and joins an in depth footprint that Intel has constructed within the nation, particularly within the space of synthetic intelligence analysis and growth, banked round its Mobileye autonomous automobile enterprise (which it acquired for greater than $15 billion in 2017) and its acquisition of AI chipmaker Habana (which it acquired for $2 billion on the finish of 2019).
Cnvrg.io’s platform works throughout on-premise, cloud and hybrid environments and it is available in paid and free tiers (we coated the launch of the free service, branded Core, final 12 months). It competes with the likes of Databricks, Sagemaker and Dataiku, in addition to smaller operations like H2O.ai which are constructed on open-source frameworks. Cnvrg’s premise is that it supplies a user-friendly platform for information scientists to allow them to think about devising algorithms and measuring how they work, not constructing or sustaining the platform they run on.
While Intel shouldn’t be saying a lot in regards to the deal, evidently a number of the identical logic behind final week’s SigOpt acquisition applies right here as effectively: Intel has been refocusing its enterprise round next-generation chips to higher compete towards the likes of Nvidia and smaller gamers like GraphCore. So it is sensible to additionally present/spend money on AI instruments for patrons, particularly providers to assist with the compute hundreds that they are going to be working on these chips.
It’s notable that in our article in regards to the Core free tier final 12 months, Frederic famous that these utilizing the platform within the cloud can achieve this with Nvidia-optimized containers that run on a Kubernetes cluster. It’s not clear if that can proceed to be the case, or if containers might be optimized as a substitute for Intel structure, or each. Cnvrg’s different companions embrace Red Hat and NetApp.
Intel’s deal with the subsequent era of computing goals to offset declines in its legacy operations. In the final quarter, Intel reported a 3% decline in its revenues, led by a drop in its information heart enterprise. It mentioned that it’s projecting the AI silicon market to be larger than $25 billion by 2024, with AI silicon within the information heart to be larger than $10 billion in that interval.
In 2019, Intel reported some $3.eight billion in AI-driven income, but it surely hopes that instruments like SigOpt’s will assist drive extra exercise in that enterprise, dovetailing with the push for extra AI functions in a wider vary of companies.
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