Technology
Friday, July 12th, 2024 2:35 pm EDT
Key Points
- Jakob Uszkoreit co-developed the transformer architecture, a key innovation in generative AI, while at Google in 2017, which significantly sped up neural network training by using self-attention.
- Uszkoreit left Google in 2021 and co-founded Inceptive, a biotech startup that aims to use generative AI for drug development, focusing initially on RNA to create more harmonious medicines with biological systems.
- Inceptive raised $100 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia in September to further its mission of transforming drug development using AI.
Jakob Uszkoreit, now co-founder and CEO of the biotech startup Inceptive, significantly contributed to the development of generative artificial intelligence while working at Google in 2017. Uszkoreit, aiming to enhance the training speed of neural networks, proposed a novel approach known as self-attention. This concept led to the creation of the transformer, a neural network architecture crucial to generative AI. Although transformers were used in various applications at Google and other organizations before gaining widespread recognition, it was the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 that brought substantial attention to this technology.
The transformer architecture was introduced through the 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need,” co-authored by Uszkoreit and seven other Google researchers, all of whom have since departed the company. Uszkoreit observed that Google’s cautious approach to deploying this technology in diverse products contrasts with smaller, more agile companies like OpenAI. Despite this, he acknowledged the value of Google’s contributions to everyday technology.
In 2021, Uszkoreit left Google to establish Inceptive, which he describes as a biological software company focusing on revolutionizing drug development through generative AI. In September, Inceptive secured $100 million in funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia, to advance AI-driven drug design. The company initially concentrates on RNA, designing its composition with AI to ensure that these molecules exhibit behaviors harmonizing with biological systems. Uszkoreit envisions a new kind of medicine that is more compatible with living organisms than current treatments.
For more insights, watch the full interview between CNBC’s Katie Tarasov and Jakob Uszkoreit, where he discusses Inceptive’s goals and the transformative potential of generative AI in medicine.
For the full original article on CNBC, please click here: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/12/inceptive-ceo-jakob-uszkoreit-says-ai-will-transform-pharmaceuticals.html
