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Earth Intelligence

28 Apr 2024 — 8 min read

Trending:

Snowflake Arctic AI
Intel Earnings

Week Recap:

Frontier Communications, an American telecom provider, experienced a cyberattack that compromised its IT systems, as announced in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on April 14, 2024. The breach led to the partial shutdown of some systems to prevent the cybercrime group, which had gained unauthorized access, from moving laterally across the network. This incident caused operational disruptions, but Frontier has reported that it has managed to contain the breach and is working towards restoring normal business operations.
Apple has removed several messaging apps, including Meta's WhatsApp and Threads, as well as Signal and Telegram, from its App Store in China following orders from the Chinese government, which cited national security concerns. This action highlights ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China over technology use and governance.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has enacted a new regulation that essentially bans noncompete agreements. These agreements traditionally prevented employees from joining competitor firms immediately after leaving a company, but now, almost all existing noncompete clauses will become unenforceable, and companies are prohibited from forming new ones. The only exceptions to this rule are senior executives, who make up about 0.75% of the workforce. The implementation of this rule marks a significant shift in labor policy, aiming to enhance worker mobility and foster greater competition within industries.
The U.S. government passed a bill that mandates TikTok's owner, ByteDance, to sell the app within a year or face a ban. The bill is part of a broader foreign aid package supporting Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, which pressured the Senate to act due to its importance. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Wednesday, as confirmed by a White House statement.
Tesla announced its first-quarter earnings for 2024, revealing a revenue of $21.3 billion compared to the anticipated $21.48 billion, marking a 9% year-over-year decline, the biggest drop since 2012. Despite these challenges, Tesla also introduced plans for a ride-hailing app to be integrated with its vehicles and indicated that new vehicle models would be launched sooner than expected.
UnitedHealth Group confirmed it paid a ransom to cybercriminals following a February attack on its subsidiary, Change Healthcare, which compromised patient data. The attack left many healthcare providers unable to fill prescriptions or process payments, significantly disrupting the sector. UnitedHealth, which serves over 152 million customers, revealed that the breach allowed unauthorized access to files containing protected health information and personally identifiable information of a large number of people.
On April 24th, at 11:51 a.m. Sanaa time, a coalition vessel intercepted an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) over the Gulf of Aden, launched from areas in Yemen controlled by Iranian-backed Houthis. The missile was likely aimed at the MV Yorktown, a U.S.-flagged vessel, but no injuries or damages were reported. Later that day, between 12:07 p.m. and 1:26 p.m., U.S. Central Command destroyed four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over Yemen, also launched by Houthis. These actions were part of efforts to protect international shipping lanes and ensure the safety of navigation in the region.
In related events, U.S. Central Command, in collaboration with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, delivered humanitarian aid to Northern Gaza on April 23rd, at 11:50 a.m. Gaza time, using four C-130 aircraft to drop over 30,000 Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and additional Jordanian food supplies. Further humanitarian assistance was provided on April 21st, with another airdrop in Northern Gaza delivering approximately 50,688 MREs. These missions are ongoing and are aimed at alleviating human suffering amid conflict, with continuous monitoring for any potential harm or damage.
The Department of Defense announced that U.S. military personnel have started constructing a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to aid in delivering critical humanitarian assistance. This initiative follows President Joe Biden's directive issued during his State of the Union Address last month. The project is being executed by the Army's 7th Transportation Brigade from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, and Naval Beach Group 1 from Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California, using the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) technology.
Microsoft reported earnings results in the first quarter of 2024, with earnings per share at $2.94 and total revenues reaching $61.9 billion. The company's AI-focused intelligent cloud division performed exceptionally well, generating $12.5 billion in operating income. This division has seen operating profits grow at an annualized rate of 48% over the last five years, driven largely by Microsoft's early investments in AI technologies, including its partnership with OpenAI.
Regulators have taken control of Republic First Bank, marking it as the first U.S. bank failure of the year. Announced by the FDIC on Friday, the bank, also operating as Republic Bank and headquartered in Philadelphia, was closed by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The FDIC, serving as the receiver, arranged for Fulton Bank, National Association, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to take over almost all deposits and purchase most of the assets of Republic Bank. Additionally, the FDIC outlined the future steps for Republic First Bank’s 32 branches across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, which will start operations as Fulton Bank branches the following Saturday and Monday, based on local branch hours.
In 2023, the United States recorded a fertility rate of 1.62 births per woman, marking the lowest level since the 1930s when such statistics were first tracked. Last year, about 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S., a 2% decrease from the previous year and the smallest number since 1979. The teen pregnancy rate also hit a historic low, with only 13.2 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19, representing a 79% decline from 1991. Meanwhile, women aged 30-34 had the highest birth rate of any age group at 95.1 births per 1,000 women, followed by those aged 25-29.

Snowflake Arctic AI:

Last week, the Snowflake AI Research Team launched Snowflake Arctic, an open-source, enterprise-level large language model (LLM) designed to enhance cost-efficiency and openness in AI training. Arctic sets a new standard in the industry by providing enterprise-grade performance on tasks like SQL generation, coding, and following complex instructions, at a fraction of the typical computational cost. Notably, it challenges competitors by achieving these results with significantly less compute power than similar models.
Snowflake Arctic boasts an Apache 2.0 license, allowing open access to both the model’s weights and its underlying code, along with all associated data recipes and research insights. This openness extends to the model’s availability across various platforms, including Hugging Face, NVIDIA API catalog, and Replicate, ensuring that users can access it through their preferred model garden or catalog like Snowflake Cortex, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and others. Emphasizing efficiency, Arctic leverages a Dense-MoE Hybrid transformer architecture that combines a dense transformer with a multi-expert layer, optimizing both training and inference efficiency.
This design allows Arctic to deliver high-quality AI performance while maintaining manageable computational demands, making it a powerful tool for enterprises looking to integrate advanced AI capabilities into their operations. Additionally, the open-source nature of Snowflake Arctic under the Apache 2.0 license means that anyone can use, modify, and distribute it freely. This promotes wider adoption and innovation, allowing developers and researchers to build upon the model without restriction.

Intel Earnings:

Yesterday, Intel Corporation announced its first-quarter earnings, showcasing a revenue of $12.7 billion, marking a 9% increase year over year. The company anticipates its second-quarter revenues for 2024 to be between $12.5 billion and $13.5 billion, which is below analysts' expectations of $13.63 billion. This outlook contributed to an 8% decrease in stock prices.
CEO Pat Gelsinger commented on the earnings during today's call, noting that although the first-quarter results were robust, they were slightly below expectations. He remains optimistic, predicting that this quarter will represent the lowest earnings point for the year, with a recovery expected in the subsequent quarters. Intel's financial results surpassed analysts' forecasts, with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) reaching $0.18 on revenues of $12.72 billion.
Intel is also advancing its position in the AI hardware market, challenging rivals such as Nvidia and AMD with its new Gaudi 3 AI accelerator. This new technology is claimed to deliver 50% faster inference and 40% greater power efficiency than Nvidia's H1001 on leading-gen AI models. Additionally, Intel is placing increased emphasis on its AI PC lineup, signaling a strategic pivot to integrate more AI capabilities into its offerings.

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