Samsung's Catalyst Fund Is on the Hunt for the Next Big Thing
*By Conor White*
In the arms race between tech giants, there is no such thing as a vacation. For Samsung, it relies on its Catalyst Fund, led by Shankar Chandran, to find the next emerging market.
"A company of our scale, we really have to think about what are those trillion-dollar opportunities?" Chandran asked.
In an interview Friday on Cheddar, Chandran said the Catalyst Fund was on the "front lines", constantly searching for companies and ideas in which to invest.
"The investment team's job is to really be the eyes and ears for the company," he added.
Currently, those eyes are firmly fixed on data and artificial intelligence.
"Almost every single industry will get reinvented by data and A.I. over the next couple of decades," Chandran said.
For Chandran, the value gleaned from combining the two is almost immeasurable.
"Data is the new oil," he said.
Humanity was aware of oil for thousands of years, but it wasn't until the internal combustion engine was created that demand went through the roof, and prices skyrocketed, he added.
"A.I. is the internal combustion engine that changed everything."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/samsung-catalyst-fund-head-talks-evolution-of-vc).
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni introduce Phia, a fashion tech startup that helps users find price comparisons and discover alternative options for apparel
Universal Music Group and AI platform Udio have settled a copyright lawsuit and will collaborate on a new music creation and streaming platform. The companies announced on Wednesday that they reached a compensatory legal settlement and new licensing agreements. These agreements aim to provide more revenue opportunities for Universal's artists and songwriters. The rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the music streaming industry, leading to accusations from record labels. This deal marks the first since Universal and others sued Udio and Suno last year. Financial terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
Microsoft says users of its Azure cloud portal may be not be able to access Office 365, Minecraft or other services due to issues with its global content delivery network services. The tech company posted a note to its Azure status page that its teams are currently deploying a fix to address the outage.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
A new poll finds that as the United States rapidly builds massive data centers for the development of artificial intelligence, many Americans are concerned about the environmental impact.
