AMD comes for Nvidia

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Welcome back, Superhuman

Nvidia's been running a marathon while everyone else was still tying their shoelaces. But with the purchase of a company that designs state-of-the-art AI servers, AMD just strapped on rocket boots and is ready to catch up.

Today’s Insights

• AMD makes a major bet on AI infrastructure

• Tutorial: Supercharge your browsing with AI

• Smell-O-Vision enters the 21st century

• Everything else you should know today

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

• AI-Generated Images: Indie band T-shirts

NEXT IN AI

Nvidia’s biggest threat yet

A major reason for Nvidia’s industry dominance: It builds not just AI chips but also the servers they plug into — a complete package that’s hard for tech companies to resist. But two can play at this game. In what could be the biggest blow to Nvidia yet, AMD just acquired the server design firm ZT Systems for $4.9B.

Why it’s significant: AMD already designs chips, but not the servers they plug into. New Jersey’s ZT Systems, meanwhile, specializes in the infrastructure used to organize chip clusters inside data centers. The acquisition means that AMD can start providing entire server systems, including ones powerful enough to process the trillions of parameters needed for today’s AI models.

What else does AMD get out of the deal? 

• It’ll bring on ZT Systems’ 1,100 system engineers, who design the systems and data centers that AI companies use to train their LLMs

• With new testing tools, it’ll be able to roll out processors at a much faster clip in order to keep up with Nvidia’s nonstop releases

• AMD plans to sell the server manufacturing division of ZT Systems since it already works with server builders and doesn’t want to compromise its relationships with them

A point of differentiation: AMD says the deal won’t compromise its dedication to open ecosystems — the ability of clients to easily switch out and customize different AI components to better match their needs. Put another way, the company wants to build a sturdy house but let you paint the walls and pick out the furniture yourself. That’s a jab at Nvidia, whose infrastructure only works with Nvidia chips — like a house where all of the furniture has already been chosen for you.

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Substrata uses Social Signal Processing (SSP), which is a specialized AI domain that deals with the detection, analysis, and synthesis of behavioral data from digitally mediated human-human interactions, such as B2B deal making, sales, and HR interviews. It encompasses both verbal and nonverbal data.

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THE AI ACADEMY

How to supercharge your browsing with AI

We spend most of our working lives in the browser. Whether it’s responding to emails or creating documents or just browsing the internet for information, the browser is the ever-present tool in the background that helps us do our work.

That’s why a better browser can make such a big difference. A browser that lets you work 10% faster or better improves your productivity across all the tasks that you do inside the browser.

Find out how to supercharge your browsing with AI here.

Get more AI tutorials →

AI & OUR SENSES

A smell-based AI model could be coming soon

After nearly 65 years, Smell-O-Vision might finally be making a comeback — with the help of AI. LLMs can generate text, images, videos, and sounds. But when we recently asked ChatGPT to recreate a scent for us, it admitted “I can't send smells through the computer, but that would be amazing if I could!”

It turns out a company called Osmo is working on an AI platform that could eventually do exactly that. CEO Alex Wiltschko, a former Google researcher, thinks smell is the most underrated of the five senses, since it can evoke strong emotions and can even play a role in our health.

How it works:

• Osmo’s model was trained to interpret thousands of aroma molecules

• That’s easier said than done, since even subtle changes can make “the scent of the molecule [go] from roses to rotten eggs,” Wiltschko told CNBC

• Its first project: Developing fragrances made with safer, non-toxic chemicals, since traditional perfumes often contain irritants

• Next, it’ll develop a model that can recreate different scents across physical distances so that you’d theoretically be able to communicate via smell on your phone or computer

The LLM could one day be used in healthcare, too: Researchers are investigating a woman’s ability to sniff out Parkinson’s years before patients begin experiencing symptoms. Dogs, meanwhile, can be taught to use their ultra-sensitive noses to spot cancerous cells in humans. Wiltschko thinks LLMs could be trained to sniff out diseases with an even greater level of precision: “It’s not going to happen this year or anytime soon, but we’re on our way.”

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AI & TECH NEWS

Everything else you need to know today

• Dialed-In Designs: Midjourney is revamping its website to give creators more editing options, including the ability to erase objects within the frame and replace them using text prompts.

• Global Voiceover: ElevenLabs is expanding access to its text-to-speech Reader app. Previously accessible only in the US, the UK, and Canada, it’ll now be available internationally across 32 languages.

• Mind Reader: California-based startup Goodfire AI has raised $7M in a seed funding round. The company helps AI firms conduct “brain surgery” on their LLMs in order to tweak their behaviors.

• Book Backlash: At least 50,000 parents in South Korea are calling for the country to reverse its plans to roll out AI-powered textbooks in the classroom.

😄 One Fun Thing: Ever consider a career as a humanoid robot trainer? To teach its Optimus robots how to navigate the world, Tesla is paying workers up to $48 per hour to perform physical tasks while wearing a motion capture suit and VR headset.

🧠 Brain Food: Researchers at MIT say they’ve proven that LLMs can do more than simply mimic the data they’ve already been trained on. Their model learned to solve puzzles without being explicitly shown how to solve them, suggesting it formed some degree of “understanding” beyond its training data.

PRODUCTIVITY

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

✅ Suno: Generate music across different genres and styles with simple text prompts.

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✅ Fyli: Create AI agents to automatically find ideal customers online, post engaging content, and get more high-intent leads.

✅ Central: An AI platform that automates everything you need to operate a compliant startup — saving time, headaches, and fines.

✅ Talktune: Master your speaking skills with realistic, AI-powered mock interviews.

PS: Want more? Check out our Top 100 AI Tools.

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PROMPT OF THE DAY

E-Commerce Returns

Prompt: Create a chat message for our [company name] explaining our return policy in a sweet and simple way. 14 days for returns, no shipping fees, product needs to be in perfect shape

You can adapt the prompt to your specific needs.

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AI-GENERATED IMAGES

Indie Band T-shirts

Midjourney Prompt: a "CHROMA CACTUS" logo, western disco, in the style of indie band tshirt
--ar 9:16 --v 6.1 --personalize wxpib97

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Until next time!

Zain & the Superhuman AI team

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