Known for his famous game series Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding, game director Hideo Kojima wants to become an AI after he dies. At their recent Investor Day Event, the Krispy Kreme CEO stated that they plan to use AI to make food within the next 18 months. The creators of South Park, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone, were able to secure a $20 million investment for their AI entertainment start-up Deep Voodoo. The Data Engineering Summit on January 18th is our first topic-specific conference. Here's why we felt it was necessary to hold such an event.

Deep Voodoo, an artificial intelligence entertainment startup founded by "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, revealed today that it has raised $20 million in funding to accelerate its development of deepfake technology, cost-effective visual effects services and synthetic media projects. Connect Ventures and New Enterprise Associates led the round. If you've never heard of Deep Voodoo before, you're not alone, but Parker and Stone are well-known. "South Park" debuted on the cable television channel Comedy Central in 1997 and is still going some 25 years later. Deep Voodoo has developed a synthetic media technology platform that uses artificial intelligence to support productions in ways that are faster and more cost-effective than existing visual effects technology.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park and various other media over the years, have raised $20 million to continue work on their professional deepfake studio for creators, Deep Voodoo. The company got its start during the media shutdown of 2020, when the pandemic prevented most travel and on-set productions. Parker and Stone had already begun assembling a AI artist team for a film they were developing, and when COVID intervened they focused on creating the tools for use later. "We stumbled upon this amazing technology and ended up recruiting the best deepfake artists in the world," Stone said in an announcement on Deep Voodoo's site. I've reached out for more info and will update this post if I hear back. The Parker/Stone cachet showed when the company made its public debut alongside no lesser a personage than Kendrick Lamar.