TechCapsules

NASA has announced a public-private partnership with Relativity Space to design, build, and launch a spacecraft carrying the Aeolus instrument suite to Mars in 2028. The Aeolus mission will provide daily measurements of the planet's global environment, collecting data on Martian dust and cloud cover, winds, and temperatures. The partnership aims to allow NASA to concentrate its resources on science discovery, with Relativity Space responsible for designing the spacecraft, launch, and satellite operations. The mission will refine [...]

Early investors in AI startup Manus, including HSG, ZhenFund, and Tencent, are planning to buy the company back from Meta for US$2 billion, according to a report by The Information. This move comes after China ordered Meta to unwind its acquisition of Manus amid tightening scrutiny of US investment in Chinese startups developing advanced AI technologies. Manus has grown significantly since the Meta deal, with its annualised revenue run rate surging to between US$400 million and US$500 [...]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined India's vision for Artificial Intelligence at the 10th edition of the VivaTech Summit in Paris. He emphasized the importance of democratizing AI to ensure its benefits reach everyone. Modi rolled out the red carpet for top tech companies, easing regulations and expanding ease of doing business. The India pavilion showcased emerging technologies, including AI solutions for detecting cancers and advanced genetic engineering therapies. Modi highlighted India's AI prowess, citing examples such as [...]

AI inference company Baseten is reportedly closing a $1.5 billion funding round at a $13 billion valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal. This latest round represents a 160% increase in valuation in less than half a year, following a $300 million Series E round in May 2023 at a $5 billion valuation. The startup, launched in 2019, benefits from the "inference gold rush" and promises to handle inference quickly while controlling costs.

Elastic has agreed to buy DeductiveAI, a startup using AI to catch and resolve software bugs, for up to $85 million. DeductiveAI was founded in 2023 and came out of stealth last November with a $7.5 million seed round. The sale marks a speedy exit for the startup, operating in the fast-growing AI site reliability engineering sector. Elastic's observability software could benefit from Deductive's tech, enhancing its platform by giving customers tools to monitor performance and resolve [...]

General Intuition, a New York-based startup, is in talks to raise around $300 million, which would bring its valuation to over $2 billion. The startup, founded by Pim de Witte and co-founders Eloi Alonso, Adam Jelley, and Vincent Micheli, trains embodied AI and world models using a unique dataset from Medal's 2 billion videos per year. The funds will be used to scale up compute capacity and release a new product by the end of summer or

A coalition of US sodium-ion battery startups, known as the American Battery Leadership Coalition (ABLC), has formed to challenge China's dominance in the battery industry. The group, led by companies such as Alsym Energy and Peak Energy, aims to establish sodium-ion batteries as a key technology for US energy storage and manufacturing competitiveness. ABLC recognizes that China has a significant lead in sodium-ion manufacturing, but believes the US can still establish a leadership position through domestic resources [...]

Chinese startup Spark Space has secured funding for its electric-pump-fed rocket, the Jinhua-1, following successful engine tests. The rocket is set to debut in 2027 and will be powered by nine Lieyan-2 engines, giving it a liftoff thrust of 90 tons. The company has raised nearly 100 million yuan in a Pre-A round and tens of millions of yuan in Pre-A+ funding, with plans to use the funds to develop the rocket. The Jinhua-1 has a payload [...]