MosaicML Acquisition Generative AI Platform Developed by Kempner’s Jonathan Frankle Acquired by Databricks in $1.3 Billion Deal
As chief scientist, Frankle led the creation of technology that reduces the cost of training neural networks
MosaicML Chief Technology Officer Hanlin Tang, left, with CEO Naveen Rao, Founding Adviser Michael Carbin and Chief Scientist Jonathan Frankle. PHOTO: MOSAICML
CAMBRIDGE, MA — MosiaicML, a generative artificial-intelligence (AI) platform developed under the scientific leadership of Kempner affiliate faculty member Jonathan Frankle, will be acquired by the data and storage management firm Databricks in a deal valued at roughly $1.3 billion.
The acquisition, announced this week by Databricks, combines MosaicML’s generative AI platform and Databrick’s data management capability, allowing businesses to use their own data to quickly, cost-effectively and easily build – and train— their own machine learning models.
Founded in 2021 by Hanlin Tang and Naveen Rao, with Jonathan Frankle as founding adviser and chief scientist, MosaicML was developed with the vision of democratizing AI by making it more accessible to a wider group of people and businesses. Instead of being forced to rely on expensive, third-party language models trained on publicly available data, MosaicML’s technologies provide companies with the ability to quickly and affordably build their own large language models, and simultaneously retain control over how their data is used.
The technology underlying MosicML’s platform was developed under Frankle’s leadership as chief scientist. Frankle and his team empirically study the learning dynamics of practical neural networks and develop interventions that change the training algorithm itself, with the goal of improving large language model (LLM) efficiency, and significantly reducing the cost of training neural networks.
Frankle has served as an instrumental advisor to the Kempner Institute, providing expert advice on compute infrastructure, hardware selection, and software engineering. With cutting-edge expertise in training AI models, Frankle will continue working with the Kempner Institute as an advisor, collaborator and mentor.
About the Kempner Institute
The Kempner Institute seeks to understand the basis of intelligence in natural and artificial systems by recruiting and training future generations of researchers to study intelligence from biological, cognitive, engineering, and computational perspectives. Its bold premise is that the fields of natural and artificial intelligence are intimately interconnected; the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) will require the same principles that our brains use for fast, flexible natural reasoning, and understanding how our brains compute and reason can be elucidated by theories developed for AI. Join the Kempner mailing list to learn more, and to receive updates and news.
PRESS CONTACT:
Deborah Apsel Lang | (617) 495-7993 | deborah_apsel_lang@harvard.edu
