While the term “biotechnology” was coined in 1919, “techbio” dates back roughly a century after that. Around 2019, the VC firm Artis Ventures set up a venture capital fund named Artis techbio with the aim of uniting software, computational biology, and drug development into a cohesive framework. The ambition behind this idea has sometimes surpassed…
The 25 most innovative companies of 2024
Yes, questions remain about whether AI chipmaker NVIDIA can maintain its momentum in 2025. NVIDIA’s upcoming Blackwell AI chips have encountered thermal problems when integrated into server racks designed to house up to 72 units. Despite these recent technical hurdles, the company remains an innovation juggernaut. 1. Why NVIDIA is the R&D leader of 2024…
From Palantir to methane-hunting to organoids: Why this tech vet is building a lights-out lab to make drug discovery more like software development
Ari Gesher, a veteran technologist who helped shape SourceForge in its heyday and was a key player at Palantir, the publicly-traded big data analytics company, wants to build a fully automated “lights-off” lab for drug discovery at Parallel Bio. “I’m using our biologists to prototype what the scientific processes are, then we’re going to build…
Top 30 R&D spending leaders of 2023: Big Tech firms spending hit new heights
In 2023, the world’s top companies invested hefty sums in R&D, with tech giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta leading the pack. Amazon alone poured $85.622 billion into technology and infrastructure, which includes R&D. The Seattle-headquartered company’s spending reflects Amazon’s ambition to lead not just in e-commerce, but in a growing number of fields ranging…