Google Inc. is in talks to invest at least $200 million (about 1.45 billion yuan) in artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cohere, people familiar with the matter said on Oct. 22. This is another sign that the arms race between big tech companies in AI is escalating.
Founded in 2019, Cohere develops natural language processing software that can be used by developers to build AI applications for businesses, including chatbot tools and other features that can understand human speech and text. In November last year, Cohere announced a multi-year partnership with Google, with Google’s cloud division providing Cohere with the computing power it needs to train its software models.
As part of the funding talks, Cohere has also been in discussions with chipmaker Nvidia about a potential strategic investment, sources close to the situation said. Talks between these companies are still ongoing and could break down. It is not yet possible to know the valuation Cohere would receive in any potential new financing.
Google and Nvidia are not commenting. cohere has not yet commented.
Aside from Google, other tech giants are looking to bet more on AI. Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks for a new round of funding from AI research group OpenAI, another startup that is racing to develop software models in the hope of achieving general artificial intelligence – that is, making machines understand everything humans can understand – within a few years. In 2019, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI.
Since taking over as CEO of Google in 2015, Sundar Pichai has stressed the importance of AI to the company. 2014 saw the acquisition of AI research company DeepMind by Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Google’s research arm Google Brain is one of the most talked about providers of large language models and other AI topics.
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, who previously interned at Google Brain, contributed to a paper that improved the widely cited Transformer AI model. Some researchers have warned that the new AI model could raise difficult ethical questions and fuel unfounded hype in the field.
This new funding round from Cohere will be the latest investment in an AI startup. In February, Cohere raised $125 million in a new round of funding led by investment firm Tiger Global Fund, bringing its total funding at the time to more than $170 million. On Monday, AI company Stability AI said it had raised $101 million in new funding from investors such as Koutu Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company held a launch event in San Francisco that day, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin in attendance.
