OctoML, a Seattle-based ML optimization startup, recently raised $85M in a round of funding led by Qualcomm Ventures.
This follows the company’s strategic partnerships with Qualcomm, ARM and AMD. The goal of OctoML’s strategic partnerships is to help organisations accelerate their machine learning pipelines and enable them to address their unique challenges with optimised hardware and software offerings.
In this article, we will discuss the details of Qualcomm’s partnership with OctoML.
Overview of OctoML
OctoML is a Seattle-based start-up that specialises in safety-critical machine learning deployment technology. The company was founded in 2017 with the goal of making machine learning easier and safer to deploy into production. Recently, OctoML partnered with industry leader Qualcomm to help manufacturers bring smarter, more stay connected products to their customers.
OctoML’s end-to-end workflow accelerates the process for deploying ML models into edge devices, allowing customers to quickly add new capabilities at scale – such as AI powered cameras and sports watch heart rate monitors. In addition, this partnership with Qualcomm will enable manufacturers to easily deploy OctoML’s AI deployment platform on their qualcomm chipset enabled devices while still maintaining safety and performance standards across all platforms.
The partnership also establishes OctoML’s software as a premier provider of ML simulation frameworks for QTI Snapdragon chipsets, bringing higher flexibility in terms of features and optimizations when deploying from desktop or mobile development platforms. It will also enable developers to access lower latency performance due to OctoML’s optimised software execution on these devices.
Qualcomm is well established in the machine learning space and this move marks a further move for them into the world of edge computing where hardware can understand context differently than if done on cloud infrastructure. In addition, it further solidifies their position as a leader in providing cutting-edge technologies for manufacturers looking to bring the latest advancements embedded within their products.
Overview of Qualcomm
Qualcomm Incorporated is an American multinational semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company that designs, manufactures, and services digital media products and services. Based in San Diego, California, the company was founded by Irwin Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi, Harvey White, Adelia Coffman, Andrew Cohen and Franklin Antonio in 1985. It has more than 12 subsidiaries operating in four segments: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT), Qualcomm Technology Licensing (QTL), Qualcomm Connected Experiences (QCE) and Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives (QSI).
Qualcomm’s core business is semiconductor design and fabrication. Its product portfolio includes:
- 5 G mobile communications chipsets.
- Bluetooth™ low-power wireless connectivity solutions.
- Snapdragon processors for mobile devices.
- Graphics processors.
- Automotive infotainment chipsets.
- Modems with its latest X55 5G modem for flagship phones like Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series to provide network speeds up to 5 Gbps on a single channel.
It also supplies wearables technologies including wearables supporting both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms. Its display products include Mirasol microdisplay technology for watches & smart glasses designed to provide enhanced visual experiences like augmented & virtual reality. Additionally, Qualcomm provides tracking technologies ranging from environmental sensory solutions such as light detection & ranging (LiDAR) systems to indoor positioning solutions used by shopping malls or museums.
Qualcomm has a strong global presence with regional teams across the United States of America (USA), Europe & Japan as well as research & development centres located in India & China with offices also present in other regions like Taiwan & South Korea. In order to stay ahead of competitors it continuously forms strategic partnerships such as its recent partnership with OctonML – a machine learning technology company – to advance the development of hardware-agnostic software enabling faster AI Model deployment across multiple hardware platforms.
OctoML Raises $85M Following Its Qualcomm, Arm and AMD Partnerships
OctoML, a Seattle-based startup, recently announced a new $85M raise following their strategic partnerships with Qualcomm, Arm, and AMD. This brings OctoML’s total funding to over $100M. With this significant funding, OctoML is set to become a major player in the application-specific AI domain.
Let’s take a look at the details of this partnership.
Background of the partnership
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and OctoML announced a strategic collaboration to bring machine learning (ML) inferencing performance and power efficiency on Qualcomm® Arm®-based mobile platforms, including both 4G/5G powered Snapdragon™ mobile platforms and the upcoming Qualcomm® Smart Edge Platforms. This will enable customers to deploy ML models with low latency on the edge while keeping high accuracy and throughput.
This is the latest round of collaboration between Qualcomm Technologies and OctoML, which has included integrating Octoml’s AutoML solution into Qualcomm’s Deep Learning Software Development Kit (DLSDK) for Snapdragon mobile platforms and optimising various commercial machine vision models for the Snapdragon 845 mobile platform. The partnership incorporates a mix of joint engineering efforts, joint productization of optimised solutions, customer support from engineers at both companies, model optimization campaigns to bring use cases closer together and joint marketing efforts.
The joining of forces between Qualcomm Technologies’ AI-based computer vision capabilities for 4G/5G powered platforms such as Snapdragon with OctoML’s cutting-edge auto machine learning platform enables developers to deliver faster inference times on less powerful hardware but still accurately capture real-world scene information at extremely low latency (under 3 ms). In addition, combined with the platform’s advanced power consumption control optimization algorithms — even 30 percent improved performance can be achieved without compromising power consumption levels — convenience store owners will be empowered to implement reliable AI applications such as object detection in their retail shops without worrying about needing expensive hardware or having device overheating issues.
Financial details
Qualcomm and OctoML have publicly announced their commitment to work together on deploying artificial intelligence in cutting-edge technologies through a strategic partnership. Qualcomm Ventures has invested in the startup and will be the lead investor in OctoML’s latest round of funding. Financial details of the investment have not been disclosed, although investor estimates suggest that Qualcomm may have taken a major stake in the company.
The two companies will focus on expanding the capabilities of artificial intelligence by bringing together Qualcomm’s expertise in hardware design and performance optimizations with OctoML’s experience developing sophisticated machine learning algorithms. The main aim is to deliver AI solutions with high performance, without compromising on development efforts, speed of execution or accuracy. They hope this will revolutionise how devices are designed for AI use cases such as smart homes, autonomous vehicles and healthcare applications.
Benefits for both companies
Qualcomm’s partnership with OctoML is expected to bring several benefits for both companies. The most noteworthy benefit from this partnership is that Qualcomm will gain access to cutting-edge data and machine learning technologies, supported by OctoML’s extensive experience in AI operations research. Leveraging this technology, Qualcomm has the chance to optimise their platform for AI and data-driven applications. In addition, by leveraging these technologies, Qualcomm will boost the performance of their devices and create more competitive products that cater to the needs of a growing customer base.
At the same time, this partnership is also beneficial for OctoML by providing them with one of the largest customers in the mobile device market. As such, it can help increase their visibility in the industry and launch its products onto a global stage. In addition, through this collaboration with Qualcomm, they gain greater opportunities to collaborate on research projects as well as generate better insights into AI/ML technology trends across industries and markets.
In addition, they will also be able to expand their customer base drastically by leveraging Qualcomm’s wide distribution network. This is an excellent way to reach new customers and offer them tailored solutions based on their device type or needs.
All in all, this partnership serves as a great opportunity for both parties involved and could prove highly beneficial for everyone involved in terms of expanding market share and gaining valuable insights into new trends within the industry.
Impact of the Partnership
The strategic partnership between Qualcomm, Arm and AMD and OctoML, a Seattle-based machine learning startup, is part of a larger trend of tech companies adopting machine learning to improve their products and services.
The $85 million funding that OctoML raised following the strategic partnerships is a testament to the potential of machine learning, and the importance of their partnership.
In this article, we’ll explore the impact that this strategic partnership has had on Qualcomm, Arm and AMD.
Potential impact on the industry
Qualcomm’s partnership with OctoML offers the potential to have a significant impact on the industry. This collaboration marks a milestone in the development of machine learning models, pushing edge AI innovations from research labs into commercialization. With the combined strengths of Qualcomm and OctoML, developers will now have access to faster and more optimised AI-powered applications that can be developed for a broad number of target markets.
The partnership will also bring advancements in development speed and optimization. Qualcomm’s vast software libraries, algorithms, and optimised inference engines will enable OctoML to speed up its platform for rapid deployment of cloud-hosted machine learning models at scale. By leveraging an existing framework from Qualcomm such as Hexagon DSPs and Neural Processing SDKs developers can quickly compose multi-modal algorithm components into complete solutions without re-optimizations or code customization.
This collaboration represents an important moment for both companies as it will enable them to tap into multiple industries such as autonomous vehicles, medical devices, industrial automation, consumer electronics and beyond. In addition, it could prove instrumental in bringing edge intelligence capabilities to customers faster than ever before due to shortened iteration times through automated testing processes for machine learning models. It also opens up opportunities for cost savings through optimizations across many platforms that don’t exist today but could eventually be realised when these technologies are further refined.
Impact on Qualcomm’s competitors
The collaboration of Qualcomm and OctoML could have a strong impact on the competitive landscape of the AI industry. This partnership will bring together the strengths of both companies to create cutting-edge solutions specifically focused on deep learning.
Qualcomm’s AI platforms are built with powerful processing capabilities to be used in fields such as healthcare and autonomous driving, placing it as a major competitor in the industry. With this new alliance, Qualcomm has a potential edge over its competitors since OctoML’s technology can lower development costs, increase efficiency, and help accelerate training time for their platforms. For example, Qualcomm’s Autonomous Driving Platform includes a Snapdragon 888 processor with integrated AI capabilities powered by OctoML. This helps reduce processing time for autonomous vehicle development significantly which can give Qualcomm a competitive edge over traditional software-only solutions provided by rival companies like Nvidia or Intel.
This partnership also has implications for customers looking for more flexible solutions as OctoML’s technology allows them to use low power consumption and speed up development cycles by quickly producing new models from existing data sets. Moreover, this partnership also enables developers to use their existing skill sets when working with AI models due to their cloud-based platform which provides developers with instant access to datasets through production ready models and other services.
Overall, it is evident that this collaboration could provide Qualcomm the upper hand against its rivals in the AI industry due changes it brings to production-ready services and faster development speeds allowed by OctoML’s technology.
tags = $28 million Series B, Seattle-based OctoML, company raised $85 million in a Series C round led by Tiger Global Management, octoml series tiger global 28m marchlardinoistechcrunch, ml tiger global 28m series marchlardinoistechcrunch, octoml series tiger global series marchlardinoistechcrunch, ml series tiger global series marchlardinoistechcrunch