AI of Microsoft from Sweden, Salesforce’s AI from London and Tokyo’s app for dating are this week’s 3 stories

1-Microsoft to invest $3B in Sweden to accelerate AI efforts in Nordics

Microsoft to invest $3.2B in Sweden to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure in Sweden, which signals the company’s largest single investment in the Nordic country.

As a part of the investment, the company to launch 20,000 of the most advanced GPUs — needed for AI training — to its three current data centers located in Sandviken, Gävle, and Staffanstorp.

I saw this story at The Next Web and Microsoft will place Nvidia’s chips for the new investments. As a side note, Microsoft is also considering using chips from AMD alongside its own semiconductors, according to Microsoft’s President Brad Smith.

The plan also covers to provide AI skills training to 250,000 people at schools, universities, organizations, and in the public industry over the next three years, which means around 2.4% of the entire Swedish population.

2- Salesforce to open AI center as part of $4 billion UK investment

Salesforce, enterprise tech giant, to open an AI center in London, a more-than 40,000-square-feet facility in London’s Blue Fin building, which can hire over 300 people.

Salesforce announced it expects the AI center to play a role in bringing 500,000 AI-related jobs in the U.K.

The new center will officially open on June 18 with a free event to train over 100 developers. The new unit to be led by the firm’s U.K. and Ireland CEO, Zahra Bahrololoumi.

The AI center is a part of a $4 billion investment in the country, which Salesforce promised to make over five years in 2023. (By the way I have story here about London and it is about Turkish startups that want to launch in London)

Besides its AI center, Salesforce uncovered it had invested more than $200 million in UK startups through Salesforce Ventures as well, including the procurement bid writing platform AutoGen AI and Eleven Labs, an AI-powered text-to-speech and voice generator.

3- Tokyo develops a dating app to encourage marriage and childbirth

Being named “Tokyo Futari Story,” Tokyo City Hall’s new initiative aims to create couples, “futari,” in a country where it is increasingly common to be “hitori,” or alone.

I saw this story at Associated Press and read details of the project were undecided. City Hall declined to comment on Japanese media.  Reports that said the app will demand a confirmation of identity, such as a driver’s license, your tax records to prove income and a signed form that says you are ready to get married.

Here’s a background: marriage is on the decline in Japan as the country’s birth rate fell to an all-time low, according to Japanese Health Ministry. Last year there were 474,717 marriages, down from 504,930 in 2022 while births totaled 727,277, down from 770,759, the data revealed.

On the other hand, Tokyo City Hall also organizes events where singles can meet, couples can get consultation on marriage as well as lovers can have their stories of how they first met turned into manga comics or songs.