A record gift to UW: The Gates Foundation is
giving $540.2 million to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, based in the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health, above. It's the largest charitable gift in university history and the latest in a series of Gates gifts to UW and IHME to set the record. The money arrives as global health funding falls sharply and as the foundation counts down to its 2045 closure.
Drones for equity: Boeing is swapping three subsidiaries — Wisk Aero, SkyGrid and Insitu — for a stake in Silicon Valley-based Archer Aviation, the electric air taxi developer. Bingen, Wash.-based Insitu, which makes uncrewed aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, is the largest defense piece, with more than $200 million in annual revenue.
Mark Zuckerberg is making waves again: The billionaire Meta CEO had a sparring match with a UFC fighter on a barge floating on Lake Tahoe. This comes after Launchpad, the $300 million superyacht that grabbed attention in Seattle this summer, made fresh headlines in Alaska. All the while, Zuckerberg is charting a course for the future of AI with a massive manifesto he shared Monday morning.
Tech Moves: Former Amazon VP Hannah McClellan Richards is now COO of Lime; MicroVision, Slalom and Gravyty add to their C-suites; Microsoft leaders depart for Crusoe and Gartner and more personnel changes.
AI at the movies: The second annual Seattle AI Film Festival returns to McCaw Hall Aug. 29-30 with 200 films from 34 countries. Creative director John Gauntt says the goal is to show what AI filmmaking looks like beyond the slop: longer runtimes, natural dialogue, and visual consistency. The team is also launching a Creative AI Accelerator to train 30-50 creators.
Hot Links:
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Amazon is backing a natural-gas powered data center in Texas that could become the largest single source of carbon emissions in the U.S. (NYT)
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Orbital infrastructure startup Gravitics will receive NASA funding to develop technology supporting a low Earth orbit effort. (Business Wire)
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Ultra-private billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is publishing her first novel since 2013, appearing to release it on her Substack. (NYT)
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AWS and Novo Nordisk are launching an AI co-innovation hub in London in which AWS engineers will work alongside biotech R&D experts. (AWS)
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“We get your pet,” Seattle-based pet-sitting marketplace Rover declares in a new ad campaign featuring nine spots and a variety of animals. (Rover)
Thanks for subscribing, and have a great week. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected]; reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected]; and reporter Lisa Stiffler, [email protected].
