Xnor mainly researches and develops edge AI. Its motto is “AI is everywhere and serves everyone.” , The original title “ The pass price reached 200 million US dollars, and Apple acquired AI startup Xnor. ai “, reproduced with permission, with minor deletions.
映 维 网 It was learned on January 16, 2020 that GeekWire quoted the source as saying, Apple has acquired Seattle-based Xnor.ai, an AI startup specializing in edge-based, low-power artificial intelligence tools.
This echoes Apple’s 2016 acquisition of another Seattle AI startup, Turi, at a high price. Anonymous sources pointed out that Apple paid a price similar to the Turi acquisition.
Xnor.ai didn’t immediately comment, and Apple sent a standard email response to Meek’s inquiry about M & A news: “Apple from time to time acquires small technology companies and we usually don’t discuss our purpose or plans . “(Same response as Turi’s acquisition news).
GeekWire went to Xnor.ai’s office and found that the company was clearly in the process of moving, and most likely it was Apple’s campus in Seattle.
If true, Xnor’s AI image recognition tool is expected to become a standard feature of future iPhones and web cameras.
For Xnor.ai’s acquisition, this marks the late Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence; AI2) has achieved a huge victory because Xnor.ai is the second successful company derived from the AI2 startup incubator after Kitt.ai. It is worth mentioning that the Chinese search engine giant Baidu in 2017 Kitt.ai was acquired at an open price.
For early investors like Madrona Venture Group, this deal is also a huge win. The same is true for the University of Washington, which is the main source of Xnor.ai’s talent pool.
This three-year-old startup focuses on edge AI: machine learning and image recognition tools that can be executed by low-power devices, without having to rely on the cloud. Co-founder and professor of the University of Washington Ali Farhadi once stated in 2018: “We have been able to extend AI from the cloud to every device outside.”
Xnor.ai has also developed a self-service platform that allows software developers, even those who are not good at AI, to put the code and database surrounding AI into device-centric applications.
These two innovations are deeply rooted in the company’s motto: “AI Everywhere, for Everyone.”
“From $ 2 battery-free hardware to the cloud, by supporting leading global brands to run the most advanced deep learning models on any device, we make ‘Ubiquitous AI’ a reality. We help any development With just one line of code, you can deploy countless AI models optimized for the edge. This is the future of ‘AI for everyone’. “
The company’s name is derived from XNOR logic gates.
Madrona and AI2’s US $ 2.6 million seed round in 2017 made Xnor.ai enter people’s horizons. A year later, Madrona led the subsequent $ 12 million Series A financingIt provided a record $ 9.3 billion, almost double the previous year’s total. PwC’s report for the fourth quarter of 2019 shows that the field of artificial intelligence is the second-highest emerging field in terms of trading activity, second only to fintech.