Tech giants Salesforce, Qualcomm, Nvidia and high-profile investor Eric Schmidt are pouring investment into open source AI startups that could be winners as the recent OpenAI saga — although now resolved with Sam Altman reinstated as CEO and a new board being composed with the approval of major OpenAI backer Microsoft — has shaken up the market and caused a reassessment of relying on a single, proprietary service for generative AI and concerns about concentration of AI development of a handful of big tech players. As public market tech giants jockey for leading positions in advanced AI, well-funded open source startups are eyeing expansion as competition intensifies and more enterprises consider adding open models and providers to their generative AI push. “The drama over OpenAI reinforces the need for open source or community models outside a single company,” said Mike Gualtieri, vice president and principal analyst at market research firm Forrester. OpenAI staff threats to quit, and worries about the startup’s ability to continue to function and support the hundreds of startups that had rushed into its ecosystem, highlighted how quickly a competitive landscape can shift, and in unexpected ways. In addition to an offer from Microsoft to join at current compensation, Salesforce CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff offered jobs to any OpenAI talent thinking of departing the company.
Full story : After closed door OpenAI drama, open source AI backed by Nvidia, Eric Schmidt, could emerge winner.
