---
title: "Weekly AI Worldview | Infinigence Near ¥1B Cumulative; ByteDance Recruits from Moonshot & 01.AI; Apple & Nvidia Eye OpenAI at $100B"
author: "Unique Research"
sourcePublication: "Unique Research (FFCAP English library)"
originalPublishedAt: "2024-09-02T16:00:00+08:00"
canonical: "https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240902a05o2w00"
source: "https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240902a05o2w00"
language: "en"
cnSourceUrl: "https://view.inews.qq.com/a/20240902A05O2W00"
---

# Weekly AI Worldview | Infinigence Near ¥1B Cumulative; ByteDance Recruits from Moonshot & 01.AI; Apple & Nvidia Eye OpenAI at $100B

_Unique Research · Company / Weekly Digest · September 2, 2024_

**Ingest note:** ~18 CN images; attach on ingest.

## China funding

**Infinigence (无问芯穹)** — nearly **¥500M Series A**, largest single check among China AI-infra startups at publish. Joint lead: NSSF Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Fund, Qiming, Hongtai; Lenovo Capital, Xiaomi, Softcom Hi-Tech follow. Founded only 16 months; cumulative near **¥1B**. Soft/hard co-optimize chip utilization + heterogeneous cluster adapters; AMD strategic deal; HETHUB mixed hetero training at ~1k-GPU scale; Infini-AI hetero cloud + edge LPU path.

## Overseas funding

**Viggle AI** (Toronto genAI animation) — **$19M Series A** led by a16z; Two Small Fish. Proprietary JST-1 physics-aware video 3D foundation model (text/image→realistic character motion). Discord community ~4M; Creator program. Scale product + controllable video/animation.

**Flyr** (airline retail AI) — **$225M Series D** (+$70M credit; >$500M total) — largest travel-tech deal YTD. Led WestCap; BlackRock, Streamlined, ADIA sub, Avianca; Vista Credit on debt. Laurence Tosi (ex-Airbnb/Blackstone CFO) joins board. Dynamic pricing / personalized offers for airlines + hotels; ARR +290% LTM. Customers: Avianca, JetBlue, Air NZ, Virgin Atlantic, etc.

**Magic** (genAI coding) — **$320M** from Eric Schmidt, Alphabet CapitalG, Atlassian, Elad Gil, Jane Street, Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross, Sequoia — ~$500M total. Google Cloud “supercomputers” on H100 + next-year Blackwell. LTM-2-mini claimed **100M-token** context (largest commercial claim then). Auto pair-programmer for write/review/debug/plan.

**Codeium** (GitHub Copilot rival) — **$125M Series C** at **$1B** unicorn. Led General Catalyst; Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks. ~$243M total since 2021. ~70 languages; 700k+ users; 1,000+ enterprise (Anduril, Zillow, Dell). Generous free tier; headcount plan to 120 by 2025.

**Openmart** (AI local-sales leads) — **$2.75M seed**; exited beta. YC W24; founders Kathryn Wu & Richard He. Scrapes public business profiles/maps/reviews into typed local-SMB DB; sells owner contact lists. Start with large accounts, then mid-market; stay SMB-contact specialists.

## Industry moves — China

**Dongguan Binhaiwan** — ¥1B electronics/AI industry fund (Binhaiwan Industry Investment × Dongguan Sci-Tech Finance × Qianhai Ark). Six AI project pitches (VR, 5G edge, etc.).

**SK Group × Legend Capital (SL Capital)** with Wuxi gov — **¥1B** fund to pull Korean semi supply chain into Wuxi. SL investing China semis incl. Black Sesame; Nextin & Gigalane plan Wuxi plants. SK Hynix: China fabs exist but no AI memory production in China (per statement).

**ByteDance LLM Research Institute** (secret build) — external talent reporting to Zhang Yiming. Ex-Moonshot core Qin Yujia + ex-01.AI Huang Wenhao joined Byte LLM team (institute affiliation unclear). Path: Lark/Yunque model → Doubao; Flow apps (late 2023); Coze overseas / 扣子 domestic. Shift from internal-only talent to external hiring. (Source note: AI Tech Review.)

**Alibaba Quark PC** — AI search / write / PPT / file summarize; system-level hotkeys; ~200 doc types; Word→PPT.

**Meitu (1357.HK) H1 2024** — revenue ¥1.62B (+28.6%); profit ~¥303M (+45%); adj. NI ~¥270M (+80.3%). R&D ¥430M (26.2% of rev, +44.5%). Imaging/design +54.5% (57.4% mix); paid subs >10.81M record. 484 patents; 266 software copyrights.

**Leqi × Yizhi** JV **Kiwise (其知)** — AI e-commerce (membership ops, CS, marketing) combining Leqi commerce + Yizhi voice AI.

## Industry moves — overseas

**Nvidia FY2025 Q2** — revenue **$30.04B** (+122% YoY); NI **$16.6B**; data center $26.3B (+154%); gaming $2.9B (+16%). Full-year GM guide ~70% (below ~76.4% Street); Q3 rev ~$32.5B (+80%; Street high ~$37.9B) → after-hours −8%. $50B buyback; Blackwell mass production/ship Q4.

**Apple + Nvidia** reportedly in talks for next OpenAI round that could value it at **$100B** (NYT). Thrive may lead; Microsoft (49% economic stake) may join. OpenAI ARR earlier >$3.4B but reported path to ~$5B loss by year-end on training/staff. Ties: Nvidia GPUs; Apple ChatGPT-in-iOS via Apple Intelligence.

**Midjourney → hardware** — SF hardware team; >$200M revenue without VC. Hired ex-Neuralink Ahmad Abbas (Apple MR); CEO David Holz co-founded Leap Motion. Still shipping video/3D models amid training lawsuits.

**Thomson Reuters acquires Safe Sign Technologies** (UK legal vertical LLM, founded 2022; Cambridge legal/AI faculty; co-founder/chief scientist Jonathan R. Schwarz). Surprising after 2023 Casetext deal — feed into CoCounsel.

## People

**Amazon CEO Andy Jassy** — internal GenAI assistant Amazon Q: Java upgrades from ~50 days to hours; saved ~**4,500 developer-years**; ~**$260M** efficiency. Code gen, docs, tests, refactor. Amazon Q Business for enterprise data/systems.

**Zhang Zhaosheng** (ex-Chinasoft Hongmeng ecosystem CTO; ex-ShenKaiHong CTO; OpenHarmony TSC) founds **Hongxin Zhilian (鸿信智联)** — open HarmonyOS, secure comms, AI terminals; angel funded. (Source: 豹料台.)

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Editorial English edition published on UniqueCapital: https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240902a05o2w00
On-site reading page: https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240902a05o2w00