Your Weekly Tech Roundup: Salesforce’s AI Buy, SpaceX’s Super Heavy, and Chai Discovery’s Big Breakthrough

Welcome back to another action-packed week in the tech world! First up, Salesforce is diving deeper into the AI game, snapping up voice agent startup Tenyx to boost its enterprise cloud offerings. The race for AI talent is heating up, and Salesforce just made a bold move. 🤖📈

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is revolutionizing space travel with its Super Heavy booster catch tech, cutting rocket recovery time and slashing costs. The future of rapid space missions is here, and Mars colonization just got a little closer. 🚀🌌

And in biotech, OpenAI-backed Chai Discovery is making headlines with Chai-1, a game-changing AI model that’s poised to speed up drug discovery and push us closer to finding cures. 💊🔬

Buckle up—big things are happening in tech!

AI TRENDS

Salesforce to acquire AI voice agent startup Tenyx, joins AI talent race

Salesforce has announced plans to acquire Tenyx, a California-based startup specializing in AI-powered voice agents, to bolster its AI-driven solutions. While the deal’s value remains undisclosed, it’s expected to close by Q3, bringing Tenyx’s leadership and team into Salesforce.

This acquisition is part of Salesforce’s renewed focus on AI following pressure from activist investors to prioritize revenue growth over aggressive M&A. By acquiring Tenyx, which caters to industries like e-commerce, healthcare, and hospitality, Salesforce aims to enhance its enterprise cloud offerings with advanced voice AI technology.

With competitors like Microsoft and Amazon also ramping up AI talent acquisitions, Salesforce’s move highlights the intensifying race among tech giants to dominate the AI landscape.

OpenAI-backed Chai Discovery launches new AI model Chai-1

Chai Discovery, an AI-driven biotech startup backed by OpenAI and Thrive Capital, has introduced Chai-1, a cutting-edge model aimed at speeding up drug discovery by predicting molecular structures. The startup, founded by former OpenAI and Meta researchers, recently raised $30 million to fuel its mission of revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry with AI.

Chai-1 has already outperformed Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold on specific benchmarks, especially in predicting protein-ligand interactions, a crucial task in drug design. The model works across various molecule types—proteins, DNA, RNA—and can even handle incomplete datasets, making it ideal for real-world drug discovery applications.

Available for free through a web interface and with open-source code, Chai-1 is set to accelerate research and development efforts worldwide.

With AI models like Chai-1 pushing the envelope, we may be entering a new era of rapid pharmaceutical innovation, making disease cures feel closer than ever.

_{AI likely to weigh on oil prices over the next decade, Goldman says}

Goldman Sachs predicts that artificial intelligence (AI) could push oil prices lower over the next 10 years by making production more efficient. The bank estimates that AI could reduce the costs of oil recovery and logistics, resulting in a $5 per barrel drop in the long-term marginal incentive price. While AI is expected to slightly increase demand for oil, the cost reductions will likely outweigh this, creating a net negative impact on prices.

By automating and optimizing operations, AI could cut costs by up to 30% for new shale wells, potentially boosting recoverable U.S. oil reserves by 8%-20%.

However, these changes could hurt major oil producers like OPEC+ by reducing their income from exports. Brent crude prices have already dropped to $74 per barrel, the lowest since December, as markets grapple with these potential long-term shifts.

Now let’s gear up for the energy AI future, where machines might pump oil more efficiently than ever before.

TECH TRENDS

Elon Musk’s Super Heavy Catch Revolutionizes Space Travel

Elon Musk’s latest innovation at SpaceX—catching the Super Heavy booster with a “chopsticks” mechanism—could be the game-changer space travel has been waiting for. Traditionally, rocket boosters are either lost to the ocean or require complex recovery, but SpaceX's new approach involves catching the rocket directly with arms attached to the launch tower. This method cuts down refurbishment time, improves reusability, and allows for faster rocket turnarounds.

Musk envisions relaunching rockets within hours, a development that could drastically reduce the cost of space exploration. Whether it’s satellite deployment or future interplanetary missions, rapid rocket reuse is a step towards making space missions as routine as commercial flights. With reduced costs and increased launch frequency, SpaceX is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in space travel, bringing humanity closer to Mars colonization and even space tourism.

Zoom out: With reusable rocket tech leading the charge, SpaceX is not only advancing space exploration but also revolutionizing global communication and research industries.

Intel and AMD Team Up to Enhance Software Compatibility

In an unexpected move, Intel and AMD announced a partnership aimed at improving software compatibility across their x86 architecture-based chips. This collaboration comes as both companies face growing competition from Arm Holdings, whose energy-efficient architecture is rapidly gaining traction in the semiconductor industry.

The x86 architecture, developed by Intel over 40 years ago, powers most personal computers, laptops, and servers. AMD, which licenses x86 technology from Intel, has been a major competitor in the processor market for years. This joint effort focuses on making software run more seamlessly across both companies' chips, a critical step as they fend off Arm’s growing influence in sectors like mobile and cloud computing.

Zoom out: With Arm's rise challenging the dominance of x86 architecture, Intel and AMD’s collaboration highlights the need for stronger unity to preserve their market stronghold in the evolving chip landscape.

STARTUP SCENE

Capacity Secures $26M and Acquires Lucy, Linc, and Envision

Capacity, a leader in AI-powered support automation, just landed $26 million in Series D funding, accelerating its growth strategy. The funding, led by TVC Capital and Toloka.vc, aims to drive the company toward profitability and expand its product offerings. But the big news? Capacity is stepping up its game by acquiring three major players: Lucy, Linc, and Envision.

These acquisitions bring specialized tech to enhance Capacity's platform—Lucy boosts data indexing, Linc sharpens self-service tools for retail, and Envision optimizes contact center operations. Together, they’ll supercharge Capacity's mission to automate repetitive support tasks, allowing human agents to focus on complex cases. With AI becoming a must-have in customer service, Capacity is positioned to lead the charge, offering businesses a unified, AI-driven solution to streamline interactions and boost efficiency.

With $50 million in annual recurring revenue and over 2,500 brands onboard, Capacity is on track to redefine the future of customer service automation.

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