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NEWS FEED
AI Essentials: The role of data centers in the AI ecosystem
If data and compute are integral to AI innovation, then the facilities that house those resources play an obvious central role and are essential to understand as well.
How 2025 state legislative sessions grew the AI patchwork and what it means for startups
Nearly all state legislatures adjourned for the year, and they took several notable steps impacting startups and AI, putting forward over 1000 bills related to the technology.
The startup struggle with AI transparency laws
Lawmakers are advancing proposals that would require startups to disclose detailed information about their AI training data, specifically the sources and copyright status of the content used.
AI Essentials: What is a foundation model?
This blog continues our series called “AI Essentials,” which aims to bridge the knowledge gap surrounding AI-related topics. It discusses what a foundation model is, how startups are leveraging them to drive greater innovation in the AI ecosystem, and what policymakers need to keep in mind.
The pro-startup policy agenda to power AI innovation
Policymakers need to support pro-startup policy if they want a world leading AI ecosystem made up of U.S. companies building AI, building with AI, and using AI to better everyday tasks.
AI Essentials: The role of data and where it comes from
Data is a fundamental resource that powers all AI systems. There are different types of data that are utilized for different functions in AI development, and varying sources of that data.
AI Essentials: What are transformers?
Humans don’t make very good multitaskers, but the same isn’t true for AI
AI Essentials: What is compute and how is it measured?
If you wanted to haul large amounts of water from a well, you would (at one point in history) need a resource, like a horse, to pull the load. You would measure how much weight the horse can pull per minute in terms of “horsepower.” In the world of AI, the resource required to make models work is compute, and it’s measured in FLOPS.
AI Essentials: What is fine-tuning?
Developing AI is incredibly expensive, but that hasn’t stopped startups with limited resources from innovating in AI and creating new products to improve our lives or businesses through a process called fine-tuning.
AI Essentials: What are model weights?
As AI systems take in vast amounts of data, they have to determine which characteristics of the data are important.
AI Essentials: What is open-source?
Open-source software is in just about every tech product in existence, from your phone, to your car, to your refrigerator.
IP recap: Generative AI lawsuits and what they mean for startups
High-profile lawsuits over generative AI are poised to create rules of the road for the entire AI ecosystem, including startups.
State Policy Update: What have states been up to regarding AI and how will it impact startups?
In a series of State Policy Updates, we are exploring how state initiatives are impacting the innovation happening in startup ecosystems across the country.
AI Essentials: How do neural networks work?
Before policymakers regulate AI, they need to understand a fundamental technology: neural networks.