AI & Robotics

Industrial robotics startup Gecko Robotics has raised $40 million in a series B round of funding led by Drive Capital, with participation from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and Next47. Notable angel investors in this round include Mark Cuban, SoftBank senior managing partner Deep Nishar, and Gusto CEO Josh Reeves. Founded out of Pittsburgh in 2016, Gecko Robotics develops several…

Presented by Dataiku White-box AI boosts transparency, creates more collaborative data science, and improves trust within businesses and with customers — and it’s getting a lot of attention. Join this VB Live event to learn how, and why, businesses need to move away from black-box systems to more explainable AI. Register here for free. Black box AI went viral recently, when David Heinmeier…

In a clear signal of its ambitions for the $91.18 billion AI chip market, Intel this morning announced that it has acquired Habana Labs, an Israel-based developer of programmable deep learning accelerators for data centers. The deal is worth approximately $2 billion, and Intel says it’ll strengthen its AI strategy as Habana begins to sample its proprietary silicon to customers. Habana will…

One area of AI that’s red-hot is virtual agents — smart software that companies are building to chat with their customers through text, voice, or a web chat box. IBM says it has emerged as the only serious provider of this technology for the enterprise. Rob Thomas, general manager at IBM overseeing data and AI, recently sat down with VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall for an interview. Thomas…