Artificial Intelligence

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A.I. Is Changing How Silicon Valley Builds Start-Ups

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Tech start-ups typically raised huge sums to hire armies of workers and grow fast. Now artificial intelligence tools are making workers more productive and spurring tales of “tiny team” success.Almost every day, Grant Lee, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, hears from investors who try to persuade him to take their money. Some have even sent him and his co-founders personalized gift baskets.Mr. Lee, 41, would normally be flattered. In the past, a fast-growing start-up like Gamma, the artificial intelligence start-up he helped establish in 2020, would have constantly looked out for more funding.But like many young start-ups in Silicon Valley today, Gamma is pursuing a different strategy. It is using artificial intelligence tools to increase its employees’ productivity in everything from customer service and marketing to coding and customer research.That means Gamma, which makes software that lets people create presentations and websites, has no need for more cash, Mr. Lee said. His company has hired only 28 people to get “tens of millions” in annual recurring revenue and nearly 50 million users. Gamma is also profitable.“If we were from the generation before, we would easily be at 200 employees,” Mr. Lee said. “We get a chance to rethink that, basically rewrite the playbook.”The old Silicon Valley model dictated that start-ups should raise a huge sum of money from venture capital investors and spend it hiring an army of employees to scale up fast. Profits would come much later. Until then, head count and fund-raising were badges of honor among founders, who philosophized that bigger was better.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Do DeepSeek’s A.I. Advances Mean US Tech Controls Have Failed?

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    DeepSeek’s A.I. models show that China is making rapid gains in the field, despite American efforts to hinder it.The United States has worked steadily over the past three years to limit China’s access to the cutting edge computer chips that power advanced artificial intelligence systems. Its aim has been to slow China’s progress in developing sophisticated A.I. models.Now a Chinese firm, DeepSeek, has created that very technology. In recent weeks, DeepSeek released multiple A.I. models and a chatbot whose performance rivals that of the best products made by American firms, all while using far fewer of the high-cost A.I. chips that companies typically need. Over the weekend, DeepSeek’s chatbot shot to the top of Apple’s App Store charts as people downloaded it around the world.The development has raised big questions about export controls built by the United States in recent years. The Biden administration set up a system of global rules and steadily expanded them to try to keep advanced A.I. technology — particularly chips made by Nvidia — out of Chinese hands. They were concerned that technology would give China an edge not just economically, but also militarily.DeepSeek’s development has provoked a fierce debate over whether U.S. technology controls have failed. Here’s what to know.DeepSeek’s innovations suggest the Biden administration may have acted too slowly to keep up with private companies sidestepping its controls.DeepSeek has said that its most recent model was trained on Nvidia H800s. This is an A.I. chip that Nvidia developed specifically for the Chinese market after export controls were first imposed, and that caused a fair amount of drama in Washington.When the United States put restrictions on Nvidia’s most advanced chips in 2022, Nvidia quickly adapted by creating slightly downgraded chips that fell just under the threshold the government had set. These chips were technically legal for Chinese companies to use, but allowed them to achieve practically the same results.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    White House Ignites Firestorm With Rules Governing A.I.’s Global Spread

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    The tech industry is fighting new regulations, expected soon, that aim to keep the cutting-edge technology in the United States and allied countries.The next big fight over offshoring is playing out in Washington, and this time it involves artificial intelligence.The Biden administration, in its final weeks in office, is rushing to issue new regulations to try to ensure that the United States and its close allies have control over how artificial intelligence develops in the years to come.The rules have touched off an intense fight between tech companies and the government, as well as among administration officials.The regulations, which could be issued as early as Friday, would dictate where American-made chips that are critical for A.I. could be shipped. Those rules would then help determine where the data centers that create A.I. would be built, with a preference for the United States and its allies.The rules would allow most European countries, Japan and other close U.S. allies to make unfettered purchases of A.I. chips, while blocking two dozen adversaries, like China and Russia, from buying them. More than 100 other countries would face different quotas on the amount of A.I. chips they could receive from U.S. companies.The regulations would also make it easier for A.I. chips to be sent to trusted American companies that run data centers, like Google and Microsoft, than to their foreign competitors. The rules would establish security procedures that data centers would have to follow to keep A.I. systems safe from cybertheft.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How A.I. Could Reshape the Economic Geography of America

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    Chattanooga, Tenn., a midsize Southern city, is on no one’s list of artificial intelligence hot spots.But as the technology’s use moves beyond a few big city hubs and is more widely adopted across the economy, Chattanooga and other once-struggling cities in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and South are poised to be among the unlikely winners, a recent study found.The shared attributes of these metropolitan areas include an educated work force, affordable housing and workers who are mostly in occupations and industries less likely to be replaced or disrupted by A.I., according to the study by two labor economists, Scott Abrahams, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, and Frank Levy, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These cities are well positioned to use A.I. to become more productive, helping to draw more people to those areas.The study is part of a growing body of research pointing to the potential for chatbot-style artificial intelligence to fuel a reshaping of the population and labor market map of America. A.I.’s transformative force could change the nation’s economy and politics, much like other technological revolutions.“This is a powerful technology that will sweep through American offices with potentially very significant geographic implications,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he studies the regional effects of technology and government policy. “We need to think about what’s coming down the pike.”At issue is a new and rapidly growing breed of the technology known as generative A.I., which can quickly draft business reports, write software and answer questions, often with human-level skill. Already, predictions abound that generative A.I. will displace workers in call centers, software developers and business analysts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Nvidia’s Global Chips Sales Could Collide With US-China Tensions

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    The chipmaker expects more than $10 billion in foreign sales this year, but the Biden administration is advancing rules that could curb that growth.In early August, the king of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, traveled from the mountains of his landlocked Asian country to the headquarters of Nvidia, a maker of artificial intelligence chips in the flatlands of Silicon Valley.King Wangchuck did a two-hour tour and listened as Jay Puri, Nvidia’s head of global business, discussed how Bhutanese investment in data centers and Nvidia chips could combine with the kingdom’s biggest natural resource, hydropower, to create new A.I. systems.The pitch was one of dozens that Nvidia has made over the past two years to kings, presidents, sheikhs and government ministers. Many of those countries went on to pour billions of dollars into government efforts to build supercomputers or generative A.I. systems, hoping to gain a competitive foothold in what could be the century’s defining technology.But in Washington, officials worry that Nvidia’s global sales spree could empower adversaries. Now the Biden administration is working on rules that would tighten control over A.I. chip sales and turn them into a diplomatic tool.The proposed framework would allow U.S. allies to make unfettered purchases, adversaries would be blocked entirely, and other nations would receive quotas based on their alignment with U.S. strategic goals, according to four people familiar with the proposed restrictions, who did not have permission to speak publicly about them.The restrictions would threaten an international expansion plan that Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, calls “sovereign A.I.” Mr. Huang has hopscotched the globe this fall, logging over 30,000 miles in three months, and the company expects to make more than $10 billion in sales this year from countries outside the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden Targets China’s Chip Industry With Wider Trade Bans

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    New rules prohibit the sale of certain types of chips and equipment to China, in an effort to close loopholes and cement the Biden administration’s legacy in countering the U.S. rival.The Biden administration announced on Monday broader restrictions on advanced technology that can be sent to China, in an effort to prevent the country from developing its own advanced chips for military equipment and artificial intelligence.The restrictions will prohibit the sales of certain types of chips and machinery to China, and will add more than 100 Chinese companies to a restricted trade list. The move marks the Biden administration’s third major update over the past three years to a set of rules that have tried to cut China off from the world’s most advanced technology.The rules are also likely to be the administration’s last on Chinese technology before President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration next month, aiming to cement the Biden administration’s legacy in slowing down a rival country’s technological progress.Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters in a call on Sunday that the move represented “the strongest controls ever enacted by the U.S. to degrade the P.R.C.’s ability to make the most advanced chips that they’re using in their military modernization,” referring to the People’s Republic of China. She said the government had worked closely with experts, industry and allied countries to ensure that “our actions protect national security while minimizing unintended commercial consequences.”National security officials have said that China’s ability to acquire and make advanced computer chips poses a threat to the United States. The chips are crucial for powering artificial intelligence and supercomputers that can be used to launch cyberattacks, design new weapons, erect surveillance systems and increase the military’s ability to respond accurately and rapidly to foreign attacks.In October 2022, the Biden administration issued its first sweeping restrictions on China, by banning sales of advanced A.I. chips and certain chip-making machinery to the country. In October 2023, the Biden administration built on those rules to capture more types of A.I. chips.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How SMIC, China’s Semiconductor Champion, Landed in the Heart of a Tech War

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    Efforts by the Beijing-backed Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, to break through innovation barriers have landed it in a geopolitical tech battle.In a sprawling factory in eastern Shanghai, where marshy plains have long since been converted into industrial parks, China’s most advanced chipmaker has been hard at work testing the limits of U.S. authority.Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, is manufacturing chips with features less than one-15,000th of the thickness of a sheet of paper. The chips pack together enough computing power to create advancements like artificial intelligence and 5G networks.It’s a feat that has been achieved by just a few companies globally — and one that has landed SMIC in the middle of a crucial geopolitical rivalry. U.S. officials say such advanced chip technology is central not just to commercial businesses but also to military superiority. They have been fighting to keep it out of Chinese hands, by barring China from buying both the world’s most cutting-edge chips and the machinery to make them.Whether China can advance and outrace the United States technologically now hinges on SMIC, a partly state-backed company that is the sole maker of advanced chips in the country and has become its de facto national semiconductor champion. SMIC pumps out millions of chips a month for other companies that design them, such as Huawei, the Chinese technology firm under U.S. sanctions, as well as American firms like Qualcomm.So far, SMIC hasn’t been able to produce chips as advanced as those of rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in Taiwan, or others in South Korea and the United States. But it is racing forward with a new A.I. chip for Huawei called the Ascend 910C, which is expected to be released this year.Huawei’s chip is not as fast or sophisticated as the coveted processors from Nvidia, the U.S. chip giant, which the White House has banned for sale in China. SMIC can also most likely make only a small fraction of what Chinese firms want to buy, experts said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A.I. Is Helping to Launch New Businesses

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    Entrepreneurs say use of artificial intelligence for a variety of tasks is accelerating the path to hiring and, ideally, profitability.Sean Ammirati has been teaching a class on entrepreneurship for more than a decade.A professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. Ammirati has groups of mostly graduate students start businesses from scratch over the course of the spring semester. Some of the start-ups that his 49 students created this year were classic examples of the form: a dating app for couples in long-distance relationships, a personalized fitness app.But Mr. Ammirati also noticed something unusual.“I have a pretty good sense how fast the progress that students should make in a semester should be,” he said. “In 14 years, I’ve never seen students make the kind of progress that they made this year.”And he knew exactly why that was the case. For the first time, Mr. Ammirati had encouraged his students to use generative artificial intelligence as part of their process — “think of generative A.I as your co-founder,” he recalled telling them.The students began sharing their ideas for use cases on a dedicated Slack channel. They used generative A.I. tools such ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot and FlowiseAI to help them with tasks including marketing, coding, product development and recruitment of early customers.By the end of the class in May, venture capitalists were descending on Carnegie Mellon’s campus in Pittsburgh.“It felt to me like what I felt like in the mid-2000s, when cloud and mobile happened at the same time,” said Mr. Ammirati, who is himself an entrepreneur. Generative A.I., he believed, could similarly change innovation “by an order of magnitude.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Vies With Allies and Industry to Tighten China Tech Controls

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    The Biden administration must navigate the interests of U.S. companies and allied governments as it tries to close off China’s access to advanced chipsThe Biden administration is fighting to overcome opposition from allied nations and the tech industry as it prepares to expand restrictions aimed at slowing China’s ability to make the most advanced semiconductors, which could be used to bolster Beijing’s military capacity.The administration has drafted new rules that would limit shipments to China of the machinery and software used to make chips from a number of countries if they are made with American parts or technology, as well as some types of semiconductors, according to people who have seen or were briefed on a draft version of the rules.The rules are aimed at blocking off some of the newer routes that Chinese chipmakers have found to acquire technology, despite international restrictions.The United States has been pushing allies like Japan and the Netherlands to toughen their restrictions on technology shipments to China, during visits to those countries as well as a Japanese state visit to Washington in April. Those nations are home to companies that produce chip-making machinery, like ASML Holding N.V. and Tokyo Electron Limited. But industry in the United States and other countries has argued the rules could hurt them, and it remains unclear when or if foreign governments will issue limitations.In the meantime, some of the rules that the United States plans to impose would have significant carve-outs, the people said. The rules blocking shipments of equipment to certain semiconductor factories in China would not apply to more than 30 allied countries, including the Netherlands, South Korea and Japan.That has sparked pushback from U.S. firms, who argue that the playing field will be further tilted against them if the U.S. government stops their sales but not those of their competitors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More