Microsoft Leads Surge in Investments for AI Startups Despite Antitrust Concerns
• Microsoft continues making big investments in AI startups, including deals with Inflection AI, Figure, Mistral AI, SynthLabs, Guardrails AI, and Foundry
• The Inflection AI deal provides a potential blueprint for getting around antitrust regulations
• Investment firm US Innovative Technology Fund is also actively investing in AI startups Celestial AI and Lambda
• After slow years, semiconductor startups focusing on AI chips are seeing an uptick in funding in 2022
• Even SPAC deals are being done in the AI sector, with generative AI startup Zapata AI going public via a SPAC merger