Good afternoon! Here’s your quick roundup of the latest developments across smartphones, generative AI, AI hiring, startups and next-generation physical-world intelligence.
Poco has confirmed that its upcoming F9 Ultra will feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, while the F9 Pro will use a binned version of the chipset. Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, has raised $76 million in Series B funding. Meanwhile, OpenAI is hiring Applied AI engineers and architects in Delhi and Mumbai as it expands its India operations. Separately, AI researchers Anima Anandkumar and Benedikt Jenik have launched a new venture focused on modelling the physical world rather than language.
Poco F9 Ultra gets the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip.
Poco F9 Pro will use a binned Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V variant.
Stability AI raises $76 million in Series B funding.
OpenAI is hiring Applied AI talent in Delhi and Mumbai.
Researchers launch a startup focused on physical-world AI.
Poco has confirmed that the F9 Ultra will be powered by the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, while the F9 Pro will use a binned Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V version. The Poco F9 series is scheduled for a global launch on September 1. The phones are expected to offer flagship displays, up to 16GB of RAM and 100W charging.
Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, has raised $76 million in Series B funding, taking its total fundraising to $232 million. The round included participation from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Electronic Arts, AMD Ventures, and Pacific Alliance Ventures. The company plans to expand its creative production tools and professional services.
OpenAI is hiring Applied AI Engineers and Applied AI Architects in Delhi and Mumbai as it expands its India operations. The roles focus on helping enterprise customers move AI applications from prototypes into production. The company is also expanding its broader India presence, with offices planned in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
AI researchers Anima Anandkumar and Benedikt Jenik have launched Accelerated Understanding after choosing not to join Bezos-backed Project Prometheus. Their company is developing AI systems designed to model physical phenomena across space and time. The technology could eventually support chip design, robotics, weather forecasting and energy applications.
The emerging focus on physical-world AI signals a shift from systems built primarily to understand text towards models capable of reasoning about real-world phenomena. Accelerated Understanding plans to use neural operators to model physics-based information, with an initial focus on enterprise applications.