After years of double-digit growth in machine learning investments, nearly 90% of companies grew their machine learning budgets again from 2020 to 2021, according to a survey from DataRobot, which also documented the top struggles that companies have with machine learning. For DataRobot's report, titled "5 Latest Trends in Enterprise Machine Learning," the AI cloud vendor surveyed about 400 companies about their AI and ML strategies. The survey showed that 86% of the companies surveyed planned to increase their spending on ML, compared ot 10% who planned no increase and just 4% who planned to spend less. While the number of companies planning to increase their 2021 spending on ML by 1% to 25% relative to 2020 declined compared to the previous two years, DataRobot spotted significant increase in companies planning to increase their spending by 26% or more. Where is all this money going?

The biggest acquisition in the history of technology has been tabled. Broadcom, which itself was purchased by Singapore's Avago Technologies in 2016, has made a $130 billion bid for rival chipmaker Qualcomm. If it goes through (and that's a big if), Broadcom would be paying 20 times the amount Candy Crush-maker King was purchased for, or more than 130 times the amount it cost Facebook to buy Instagram. It could even get the equivalent of five LinkedIns for the price. The proposed deal is so big it's nearly double the biggest tech buyout of all time, Dell's $67bn buyout of EMC in 2015. Broadcom's purchase of Qualcomm would make the company dominant in the chipmaking industry.

In surpassing 30,000 attendees - up from 19,000 the year previous - AWS re:Invent 2016 continues to capture the imagination of the partner, customer and developer communities. Yet despite the bumper crowds, it was intelligence exhibited by machines that stole the show in Las Vegas. Artificial intelligence to be precise, heralded as the next great disrupter in cloud, and the weapon of choice for vendors fighting for increased market share. While nothing is certain in life but death and taxes - well, perhaps for some - when it comes to public cloud, the dominance of Amazon Web Services is both predictable and undeniable. Yet the battle for control of the skies has been raised a notch further with the tech giant enhancing its services across its broad portfolio, with its new cloud-native database offerings designed to lure large enterprise accounts.

In surpassing 30,000 attendees - up from 19,000 the year previous - AWS re:Invent 2016 continues to capture the imagination of the partner, customer and developer communities. Yet despite the bumper crowds, it was intelligence exhibited by machines that stole the show in Las Vegas. Artificial intelligence to be precise, heralded as the next great disrupter in cloud, and the weapon of choice for vendors fighting for increased market share. While nothing is certain in life but death and taxes - well, perhaps for some - when it comes to public cloud, the dominance of Amazon Web Services is both predictable and undeniable. Yet the battle for control of the skies has been raised a notch further with the tech giant enhancing its services across its broad portfolio, with its new cloud-native database offerings designed to lure large enterprise accounts.