Coreweave Cloud Provider Secures Another $200M, Lightmatter Photonic AI Hardware Raises $154M, Meta Unveils Latest VR Headset Before Apple

Hello! 🙋We have the following updates for you today! 📣

• CoreWeave, a specialized Cloud provider, secures another $200M.
• Lightmatter’s photonic AI hardware raises $154M.
• Meta unveils latest VR headset days before Apple reveals its own.
• Microsoft announces communities on Teams on Windows 11.

Specialized Cloud Provider CoreWeave Secures Another $200M

CoreWeave is a specialized Kubernetes native cloud provider built for large-scale, GPU-accelerated workloads. Coreweave reduces latency by 50%, improves speed 35 times faster, and reduces cost by 80%.

They raised an additional $200M in funding from Magnetar Capital, a month after a $221M Series B funding round led by the firm, bringing the total to $421M.

As per resources, Microsoft signed a billion-dollar deal with Nvidia-backed CoreWeave, which rented out Nvidia graphic cards and was valued at $2 billion in April, with a $100 million investment from Nvidia.

Its serverless orchestration layer is popular for AI startups as it allows for quick launch of workloads while reducing management complexity.

CoreWeave’s cloud infrastructure is in high demand due to the increase in generative AI technology. The company offers quick and cost-efficient solutions for compute-heavy workloads. 

Lightmatter’s Photonic AI Hardware Raises $154M

The startup Lightmatter uses light to create photonic computing chips specialized for AI. It combines electronics, photonics, and algorithms to create a new AI computing platform.

Lightmatter creates photonic processors that outperform traditional processors in speed, efficiency, and thermal properties, meeting the needs for improved computing speed, lower energy density, and reduced chip heating.

Lightmatter raises $154m in Series C funding led by SIP Global, Fidelity, Viking Global, GV, HPE Pathfinder, and current investors, taking over $270m in total funding.

Lightmatter’s platform helps address AI’s growth while reducing environmental impact with efficient energy usage in computing.

Meta Unveils Latest VR Headset Days Before Apple Reveals Its Own

According to a recent Meta blog post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled the company’s latest virtual reality headset, the Quest 3.

The blog post states that the Quest 3 is Meta’s most advanced headset yet, featuring a high-resolution color mixed reality display, a 40% decrease in thickness compared to the Quest 2, and an improved Qualcomm chipset, which provides twice the graphics performance for optimal comfort and display resolution.

It is anticipated that Apple will unveil its VR headset next week during the June WWDC event as they enter the competition in this field.

Quest 3 includes pancake optics and a high-resolution display for better content viewing. It has a new Snapdragon chipset for increased pixel density.

Sign up with Meta for the latest updates about this release.

Microsoft Announces Communities on Teams on Windows 11

Microsoft is updating the free version of Teams on Windows 11 with support for the communities feature.

Windows 11 users can now create and manage communities in Teams. Community owners can invite, host events, and moderate content with safety features. Microsoft will soon expand support to Windows 10, macOS, and web platforms.

It also supports Microsoft Designer, an AI-powered creative application that enables the creation of visual materials, such as social media posts or event invitations, based on textual cues.

It is considered Microsoft’s response to group organizing tools like those seen on Facebook, Discord, WhatsApp, Reddit, and others.

Microsoft improves Teams for Windows 11 and mobile devices, allows markup tools and filters, and offers community suggestions for iOS & Android.

Teams communities will soon have access to polls and improved membership moderation controls for owners.

For more updates, check out the Latest Tech category.