Welcome to the latest issue of your guide to AI, an editorialized newsletter covering key developments in AI research, industry, geopolitics and startups during January 2023. This one is a monster so it might get clipped in your inbox (read the online version in case!). Nathan wrote an oped in The Times for why university spinouts are a critical engine for our technology industry and why spinout policy needs urgent reform. The Times Higher Education profiled our open source data term database, spinout.fyi. Nathan commented on The Financial Times' Big Read on The growing tensions around spinouts at British universities. The State of AI Report provided two key figures to The Economist's piece on The race of the AI labs heats up. Register for next year's RAAIS, a full-day event in London that explores research frontiers and real-world applications of AI-first technology at the world's best companies. As usual, we love hearing what you're up to and what's on your mind, just hit reply or forward to your friends:-) BioNTech acquired London and Tunis-based AI startup InstaDeep for $680M (cash stock) - this was a huge deal.

BioNTech has announced a planned acquisition of London-based InstaDeep in a deal that will see £362 million in cash and BioNTech shares, excluding the shares already owned by BioNTech with InstaDeep shareholders eligible to receive additional performance-based future milestone payments up to approximately £200 million. The move will allow the German biopharma company to rapidly incorporate a number of Instadeep's validated and novel BioNTech-trained AI- and ML-based models across BioNTech's discovery platforms and connected, through InstaDeep's DeepChain platform, to an integrated automated lab infrastructure. Ultimately, this means that BioNTech, which was focusing on cancer treatments prior to shooting to stardom through its partnership with pfizer, developing the omnipresent COVID-19 vaccine, can now develop more, faster, and perhaps even better than ever before. The acquisition is more of a formality at this point, as the two companies have a track record that extends back nearly four years now. In November 2020, the companies announced a collaboration and joint AI Innovation Lab that has been aimed at applying the latest advances in AI and ML technology to develop novel medicines for a range of cancers and infectious diseases.

Jan 10 (Reuters) - BioNTech SE has agreed to acquire British artificial intelligence (AI) startup InstaDeep for up to 562 million pounds ($682 million) to speed up its biotech research and manufacturing capabilities. Under the German vaccine maker's largest takeover deal to date, BioNTech is to pay 362 million pounds upfront, in a mix of cash and an unspecified number of BioNTech shares, and up to 200 million pounds contingent on InstaDeep's future performance. "Our goal with the acquisition is to integrate AI seamlessly in all aspects of our work - from target discovery, lead discovery to manufacturing and delivery of our products," BioNTech co-founder and Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said at the J.P. Morgan healthcare conference on Tuesday. Sahin also cited BioNTech's partnership last week with the U.K. government for development of personalized cancer therapies and how AI would help in that. The transaction adds to a slew of deals as the industry meets in San Francisco for the conference this week.

InstaDeep, one of the leaders in the design of decision-making Artificial Intelligence systems, announced on January 25 that it had raised $100 million (€88 million). The company closed a Series B round led by DeepTech investment firm Alpha Intelligence Capital and supported by CDIB. BioNTech, Chimera Abu Dhabi, Deutsche Bahn Digital Ventures, Google, G42 and Synergie participated in this latest round. Founded in 2014 by Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim, InstaDeep is a leader in decision AI systems, it has been named two years in a row to the CB Insights AI 100 ranking of the world's 100 most promising private artificial intelligence companies. The company develops patented AI products such as its DeepChainTM protein design platform and collaborates with leading companies such as Google DeepMind, Nvidia and Intel.

AI has the potential to generate meaningful returns for the enterprise. Responding to a 2018 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, 54% of business executives say that their adoption of AI within the workplace has led to a boost in productivity. A separate 2019 McKinsey report found that 44% of firms using AI achieved a reduction in business costs in departments where AI is implemented. But barriers stand in the way of deployment, including a lack of production-grade data and expensive tools and development processes. Among the top challenges enterprises face in adopting AI is an absence of in-house talent.

Never before has all of humanity focused so intently on the development of a medical remedy. Never before has so much money been invested in a serum in such a short amount of time. Never before have scientists, pharmaceutical companies and politicians been under such immense pressure to deliver. All that has led to an achievement that few thought possible: the development of a new vaccine within just one year instead of the eight to 10 years it normally takes. It is an unbelievable accomplishment, but it is also a hint as to what is now in store for us.

When Melissa Moore was tinkering around with RNA in the early 90s, the young biochemist had to painstakingly construct the genetic molecules by micropipette, just a few building blocks at a time. Inside the MIT lab of Nobel laureate Phil Sharp, it could take days to make just a few drops of RNA, which ferries a cell's genetic source code to its protein-making machinery. She didn't imagine that nearly three decades later she'd leave academia to work for a company that cranks out the stuff 20 liters at a time. Moore heads up RNA research at Moderna Therapeutics. Worth an estimated $7 billion, it's one of the most valuable private healthcare companies in the world, according to CB Insights.