Ransomware attack on software supplier disrupts operations for Starbucks and other retailers
Artificial intelligence (AI) development platform Lightning AI has obtained a $50 million equity investment. The company, maker of the PyTorch Lightning open AI framework, announced the investment — from Cisco Investments , J.P. Morgan , K5 Global and Nvidia — in a news release Thursday (Nov. 21), saying it brings its total funding to $103 million. “Historically, enterprises have struggled with fragmented, in-house ML [machine learning] infrastructure requiring teams of engineers to maintain, which quickly becomes outdated,” the release said. “Lightning AI eliminates this complexity by unifying dozens of separate tools into one, multi-cloud platform, offering full, low-, and no-code solutions to train and deploy models, build intelligent agents, code together on cloud GPUs, host AI apps and more — all securely on enterprises’ preferred cloud infrastructure.” Launched 12 months ago, Lightning AI has gained 240,000 users across 2,000 organizations, with PyTorch Lightning being downloaded more than 160 million times, the release said. “Building your own AI platform today is like building your own Slack — it’s complex, costly and not core to your business,” said William Falcon, Founder and CEO of Lightning AI. “The value for enterprises lies in their data, domain knowledge and unique models —not in maintaining AI infrastructure.” The funding comes during the closing weeks of a year that has seen enterprise spending on generative AI increase sixfold, as businesses began incorporating the technology after first experimenting with it. This spending reached $13.8 billion , compared to $2.3 billion last year, venture capital firm Menlo Ventures announced earlier this week. “2024 marks the year that generative AI became a mission-critical imperative for enterprise,” Joff Redfern , partner at Menlo, said in a news release. “The numbers tell a dramatic story of organizations moving beyond pilots to embedding AI at the core of their business strategies.” The VC outfit said that 72% of enterprise IT decision-makers from companies with at least 50 employees expect to see wider adoption of generative AI “in the near term,” the release said. At the same time, these officials said the transformation is not yet large in scale, as companies are seeking high-value use cases for the technology. Menlo’s findings are in line with research by PYMNTS Intelligence, which shows that 78% of chief financial officers say that their companies plan to increase spending on generative AI.
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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — TCU leading scorer Frankie Collins will miss the rest of the season because of a broken bone in his left foot, the school said Friday. The 6-foot-2 senior guard, in his first season at TCU after spending the past two at Arizona State, is scheduled to have surgery Tuesday in Dallas. Collins leads the Horned Frogs (5-4) with 11.2 points and 4.4 assists per game. He also averages 4.4 rebounds per game. TCU said Collins broke his foot in the first half of its 83-74 loss to Vanderbilt last Sunday. He still played 35 minutes, finishing with six points and seven assists. Collins played 31 games as a freshman for Michigan's NCAA Sweet 16 team in 2021-22 before transferring to Arizona State. He started all 32 games last season for the Sun Devils, averaging 13.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. He could potentially get another college season through a medical redshirt. Arizona State is in its first Big 12 season. It will host TCU on Feb. 15. AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-pollArsenal and Bayern Munich secured victories in the UEFA Champions League but Manchester City squandered a three-goal lead to settle for a draw. Arsenal got back to winning ways in the competition with a commanding 5-1 victory over Sporting at Estadio Jose Alvalade. Goals by Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Magalhães, Bukayo Saka, and Leandro Trossard made a light walk of Gonçalo Inácio’s effort for the hosts. The result means Arsenal move up to seventh in the Champions League table while Sporting are a place behind them, with both sides on 10 points. In Germany, Bayern Munich boosted their hopes of a top-eight finish in the league phase of the competition with a 1-0 victory over Paris St-Germain. Defender Kim Min-jae scored the only goal seven minutes before the interval to condemn the French side to yet another defeat as they remain winless in the Champions League since September. Read Also: UCL: Raphinha nets hat-trick as Barca thrash Bayern; Man City, Liverpool win Elsewhere, Manchester City blew away 3-0 to draw 3-3 against Feyenoord as their wretched form continued at a stunned Etihad Stadium. Pep Guardiola’s side looked to be cruising after two goals from Erling Haaland and another from Ilkay Gundogan put the hosts into a commanding lead. But the Dutch visitors staged a stunning comeback to take a point back, with goals from Anis Hadj Moussa, Santiago Giménez, and David Hancko. Having failed to win their past six matches in all competitions, City have a huge game coming on Sunday against rivals Liverpool. City are 15th in the Champions League table after dropping seven points from five matches. In the other Champions League ties of Tuesday, Barcelona thrashed Brest 5-0, Atalanta thrashed Young Boys 6-1, Inter Milan pipped RB Leipzig 1-0. Bayer Leverkusen also thrashed RB Salzburg 5-0, Atletico Madrid hammered Sparta Prague 6-0, while AC Milan won 3-2 over hosts Slovan. Opinions Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs. As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake. If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause. Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development. Donate Now