The Battle of the LLMs: OpenAI, Meta and Mistral

In today’s newsletter:

• LLM showdown: GPT-4o mini vs. Llama 3.1 405B vs. Large 2-123B

• The Rise of Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC)

• OpenAI projected to lose $5 billion in 2024

• 5 AI tools in the spotlight

Read time: 4-5 mins

A Three-Way Fight: GPT4o mini vs. Llama 3.1 405B vs. Large2

The LLM space is heating up yet again, with OpenAI, Meta, Mistral racing for developers. Here are some key dates:

• OpenAI released GPT4o mini on 18th July 

• Meta released Llama 3.1 405B on 23rd July 

• Mistrial released the large2 model on 24th July 

Over the course of the week, the battle between closed-sourced vs open-source Titans intensifies, all in the name of “build it together” and “make models more accessible”. Apparently, everyone is rallying for ’developers' attention, gunning for apps that use their models.

Motives asides, what are the key difference between these models? This article provides analysis of all three models and suggestions in terms of top use case, as well as a glimpse of into the East; a prediction of what is on the horizon for the Chinese LLM scene. 

Read more here

News from Asia:

• Bytedance’s Doubao LLM is being used by SAIC Motors to collect user data and feedback

• China Unicom unveiled three flagship automotive-adjacent offerings build on its AI model

• Tiktok China version Douyin influencer ecommerce revenue grew 43% yearly given the annual increase of influencer by 5.3M people

• Microsoft asks 800 employees to relocate out of China by end July

• China’s censorship rules have extended to local AI development with new regulative measures for models and chatbots

• The leading China LLM company Baichun closed $700M series A raise.

News from the West:

• Amazon is looking to monetize Alexa to plug the $25B loss from devices

• OpenAI is estimating $5B loss for 2024 with training and inference cost tops at $7B.

• AI at Paris 2024: new use cases include broadcasting, athlete safeguarding, energy management

• Meta’s AI assistant got an LLM upgrade

• Salesforce and Workday are collaborating to create an AI assistant

• New research shows that AI models can collapse from self-training

Trending Tools & Apps

1. IKI.ai - Fetch information, provide structured answers, brainstorm, extract ideas, or write text. Augmented with web search and curated index

2. Roadway - Marketers can now self-serve data and pull insights with an AI assistant; built by ex-Head of Growth at Notion.

3. Archie - Design and plan software applications with the power of AI in minutes.

4. Hex - Go end-to-end from quick queries to deep-dive analyses to interactive data apps all in a collaborative, AI-powered workspace.

5. Reforge - AI tool that integrates with Notion, Google Docs to evaluate your work and give you advice based on experts.

Established in 2022, the Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC) now manages four funds with a total size of $8 billion:

• Hong Kong Growth Portfolio;

• Greater Bay Area Investment Fund;

• Strategic Innovation Fund; and

• Co-Investment Fund: a $3.8 billion super LP fund

HKIC is focused on three themes - (1) Hard & Core Technology, with AI as a key subset, (2) Biotech, and (3) New Energy Technology. Here are three key investments HKIC has made in the AI space in the last quarter:

1. SmartMore - AI unicorn focusing on the application of AI to production lines, such as machine vision that can conduct visual inspections in lieu of human labor.

2. BioMap - Biotech company aiming to accelerate novel drug discovery for unmet medical needs with AI

3. Galbot - Beijing-based humanoid robot startup with applications in manufacturing, retail, pharmacy and home.

All of these companies have agreed to use Hong Kong as a development base. It is clear that Hong Kong is gearing up to give Singapore a run for its money as the Asian capital of AI, and we are looking forward to seeing how it would play out.