1. Sequoia Capital enters the picture as Musk's AI company nears $6bn funding round (Yicai)

Musk could be on the verge of securing billions of dollars to build his chatbot Grok into a formidable rival to ChatGPT, a market source said. Two people familiar with the matter said that Musk's startup xAI is raising $6 billion, valuing the company at $18 billion without that investment. Sequoia Capital is one of the investors involved in this round of xAI financing, one of the people familiar with the matter said, while the other said the financing is expected to close in the next two weeks. The round is one of the very largest single funding rounds on the AI track.

2. NVIDIA buys two AI startups to make AI chips cheaper (Phoenix Tech)

On 25 April, NVIDIA announced an agreement to acquire Run:ai in a deal that is expected to cost around $700 million, CTech reported. At the same time, NVIDIA has also acquired Deci, another Israeli AI company, and it is understood that these two startups, which were recently acquired by NVIDIA in a deal, aim to reduce the cost of developing or running generative AI models, help customers make more efficient use of AI computational resources, and in turn boost demand for NVIDIA's AI chips.

3. Vietnam's tech giant FPT to invest $200 million in ‘artificial intelligence factory’ with NVIDIA (Interface News)

Vietnamese tech giant FPT and NVIDIA have announced a comprehensive strategic partnership, with plans to invest $200 million in NVIDIA's technology to build an ‘artificial intelligence factory’ that will promote AI research and provide services and solutions to customers in Vietnam and globally. NVIDIA will help FPT develop AI technologies in areas such as automotive and digital transformation, the statement said.

4. Perplexity AI Raises New $63 Million Round, Valuation Rises to Over $1 Billion (WisdomTree)

Google rival and US artificial intelligence search company Perplexity AI has raised around $63 million in a new funding round valuing the company at more than $1 billion. The funding, which will be announced on Tuesday, doubles Perplexity's valuation from three months ago.

Investor Daniel Gross led the round with participation from billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and Figma Inc. CEO Dylan Field. In addition, several early investors in Perplexity, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and NVIDIA, joined the round.

Less than two years old, Perplexity is understood to offer an AI chatbot that summarises search results, lists quotes from answers and helps users optimise their queries for the right answer. With an emphasis on accuracy, Perplexity has quickly distinguished itself in an increasingly crowded market, and so far this year, Perplexity has processed more than the 75 million user queries in the U.S. that it will do in all of 2023.

5. Tesla's market value jumps $402.8 billion overnight (finance.com)

Beijing time in the early hours of April 25, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed, the Nasdaq rose 0.1%, the S&P 500 index rose 0.02%, the Dow fell 0.11%. Tesla jumped more than 12%, creating a very large one-day gain since January 2022, with a market value jump of $55.6 billion (about Rs. 402.8 billion), and the total market value returned to above $500 billion.

Although Tesla's earnings report released on the 23rd fell short of expectations, it said it has updated its future model line-up to bring forward the launch of new models, which were originally announced to the public to begin production in the second half of 2025.

Looking Back Home

Riding the Waves

1. Byte Jump: ‘Company exploring the sale of TikTok’ news is not true, there is no relevant plan (Interface News)

ByteDance released a statement on the evening of 25 April through its official headline: the news of foreign media about ByteDance exploring the sale of TikTok is untrue, and ByteDance does not have any plan to sell TikTok. Previously, some foreign media reported that bytes discussing the sale of TikTok's majority stake in the U.S. business, and claimed that ‘Walmart may be the most ideal buyer’.

2. Beijing Auto Show relaunched, new energy becomes the big winner of the show (Sina Hot Spot)

According to reports, the 2024 (18th) Beijing International Automobile Exhibition will be held at the China International Exhibition Centre from 25 April to 4 May, with a total exhibition area of 220,000 square metres, and the theme of this year's show will be ‘New Era, New Automobile’.

It is understood that the 2024 Beijing Auto Show has 117 global premieres (including 30 global premieres of multinational companies); 41 concept cars. There are 278 new energy models. Compared with Auto Beijing 2020, the number of new energy vehicles far exceeded the previous edition's 160 units. Various types of new energy vehicles such as add-on, plug-in hybrid, pure electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles blossomed, signalling the arrival of the new energy era.

3. Huawei Cloud: fostering 100+ AI innovation companies in Hong Kong, China in three years (SSE)

A few days ago, at the Huawei Cloud China Hong Kong Summit, Huawei Cloud announced that it would cooperate deeply with Hong Kong Cyberport and other industry partners to establish an AI industry cloud platform and an AI empowerment centre in Hong Kong, provide cutting-edge technology and skills training for partners, and promote the accelerated development of AI industry clusters.

At the same time, Huawei Cloud China Hong Kong AI Acceleration Plan was released, jointly accelerating the development of AI industry in Hong Kong, China, promoting AI technology exchanges and cooperation, and cultivating 100+ Hong Kong, China, AI innovation enterprises within 3 years.

4.Ali Releases Career Trend Report: AI Capabilities Are Becoming Key Competitiveness in the Workplace (36 Krypton)

Alibaba released the ‘AI+’ Career Trend Report, which introduces how China's various industries are using AI (Artificial Intelligence). According to the report, AI has shown great value in industries such as programming, design and pig breeding, etc. AI capability is becoming a key competitiveness in the workplace, and ‘human-computer collaboration’ is becoming a new way of working. Li Ning, Director of the Department of Organisation and Leadership at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management and Flextronics Chair Professor, said that more and more employers are recognising AI competence as a key indicator for evaluating talents, and are focusing on it in recruitment and assessment.

5. Temu has a 17 per cent share of the US market (Eon.com)

According to foreign media reports, Temu has already occupied 17 per cent of the U.S. retail market share, and the U.S. retailers in fierce competition. Temu is understood to have become the top-ranked shopping app in the Apple App Store, surpassing three major retailers - Amazon, Target and Walmart - which are currently ranked third, fourth and eighth respectively. With inflation on the rise, U.S. consumers are increasingly turning to Chinese e-commerce platforms for their shopping needs. With its rich categories and low prices, Temu poses a challenge to Amazon and traditional U.S. retailers.