This Latvian Scientist Says His Startup Is Winning The AI Drug Discovery Race - Forbes (Full Access)   

Insilico Medicine, backed by blue-chip investors like Warburg Pincus and Qiming Venture Partners, has 17 preclinical drug candidates so far and earlier this month signed a $500 million licensing deal with Italy’s Menarini.

Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and co-CEO of Insilico Medicine, at the company's research facility in Suzhou, China, on October 31, 2023.

In the crowded field of companies racing to discover the next blockbuster drug using artificial intelligence, Hong Kong and New York-based Insilico Medicine says it’s ahead of the pack.

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How One Struggling Chip Company Benefited From Middle Eastern Investors’ AI Ambitions - Forbes (Full Access)   

For more than a decade, a California-based semiconductor company launched by Intel engineers operated in obscurity, developing a chip that it hoped could put a dent in Nvidia's edge computing business. But even after the company, Blaize, raised more than $200 million from venture capital firms like GGV and the tech investor Lane Bess, it was in need of more capital last year, and its existing investors were unwilling to provide more. "They came back to me and said, 'Can you put more money in to keep us going?'" Bess, who has invested around $25 million, told Forbes. "And it was either that or we basically write down a loss."

But last summer, a third option emerged: a group of Middle Eastern investors with a growing interest in AI. Led by Shahal Khan, who spearheaded the 2018 acquisition of Manhattan's Plaza Hotel, the group was investing billions in AI ventures with an eye towards transforming the Gulf states into a preeminent tech hub. Blaize's chips — which could provide edge compute power for anything from military drone footage to autonomous vehicles — would help bolster these ambitions.

Now, Blaize is set to go public via a SPAC merger with a blank check company led by Khan, BurTech, at an enterprise value of $894 million, and is expected to bring in $71 million in new capital, the company said last month; it expects to list on the NASDAQ in the second quarter of 2024. "The reason we invested in it really was that a lot of my LPs are from the Middle East," Khan told Forbes, including the family offices of the royal families from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar. "And they're investing a tremendous amount of money in building what they think is probably one of the major supercomputer hubs on the planet."

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Philippine Fast Food Billionaire Accelerates Jollibee’s Global Expansion - Forbes (Full Access)   

This story is part of Forbes' coverage of Philippines' Richest 2023. See the full list here.

Billionaire Tony Tan Caktiong, founder of the Philippines' largest fast food chain Jollibee Foods, has rediscovered his appetite for growth. As a result, his fortune, which fell three years ago to $1.9 billion when the pandemic shuttered dine-in services, is now up to $3.2 billion, enough to propel him to No. 5.

After opening a record 542 new stores in 2022, Jollibee is investing up to 19 billion pesos ($342 million) to open as many as 600 stores this year, to bring its global footprint to over 7,000 locations. The Manila-based company is stepping up the buildout on strong earnings growth—net profit climbed 26% year-on-year to 7.6 billion pesos in 2022 on the back of a 40% jump in revenue as restaurants started buzzing once again.

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ServiceNow And Nvidia’s AI Power: A Stock Surge Beckons - Forbes (Full Access)   

In this photo illustration of the TradingView stock market chart of ServiceNow Inc. seen displayed ... [+] on a smartphone with the ServiceNow Inc. logo in the background. (Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The artificial intelligence revolution is coming, complete with a big productivity payoff. Investors should get ready.

News broke last week on Reddit, a perfect venue, that DuolingoDUOL (DOUL) is offboarding a large percentage of its contractors. The company operates a mobile application platform for music, math and language learning certification.

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