It’s a wrap: News this week (July 15 – July 22)

There have been multiple developments on the tech front this week. From Infosys’ FY24 first quarter results to Microsoft Inspire 2023 event, this is the list of the most important developments this week for a quick catch-up:

Infosys declares quarterly results

Bengaluru-headquartered Infosys announced its first quarterly results this week, reporting a sequential growth of 1% and year-on-year growth of 4.2% in revenue in constant currency terms. The net profit rose 10.9% YoY to ₹5,945 crore. The company missed Street expectations, while also revising its growth guidance to 1-3.5% — down from the 4-7% guidance given during the FY23 earnings conference on April 13.

Along with the financials of the company, Infosys’ chief executive officer Salil Parekh spoke about its plans with generative artificial intelligence tools and software. The company currently has 80 active projects in this domain and is training 40,000 employees on generative AI-specific skills. 

L&T Technology Services and Coforge also announced their results this week. For Coforge revenue for the quarter grew 2.7% sequentially on constant currency (CC) terms to ₹2,221 crore, while net profit jumped 43.9% to ₹165.3 crore — driven by a one-time exceptional expense incurred last quarter. On the other hand, Engineering services company L&T Technology Services (LTTS) has reported a net profit of ₹311 crore with a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 13% for the first quarter that ended June 30. 

Meta launches Llama 2

Facebook parent company Meta released the commercial version of its open-source AI model called Llama 2. This is the new version of the Llama model that was launched in February. Llama 2 will be distributed by Microsoft through its Azure cloud service and will run on the Windows operating system. The tie-up between Microsoft and Meta is targeted at enterprises, offering them the capability to build apps using generative AI tools. In addition, Meta is working with Qualcomm to integrate Llama 2 AI implementations into smartphones and PCs starting next year.

At its annual partner event Inspire 2023, Microsoft made a slew of AI-led announcements including the expansion of Bing Chat for the enterprise, its partnership with Meta, and a $100 million investment for partners in the areas of analytics and AI.

Honeywell acquires  SCADAfence

US-headquartered Honeywell announced the acquisition of Internet of Things (IoT) cybersecurity solutions SCADAfence. The cybersecurity company offers services like asset discovery, threat detection, and security governance.
The company intends to incorporate SCADAfence’s products into Honeywell Connected Enterprise’s Forge Cybersecurity+ suite. Honeywell Connected Enterprise is Honeywell’s software division, emphasising digitalisation, sustainability, and OT cybersecurity SaaS solutions.  

GitHub Copilot Chat beta available to all businesses

Microsoft-owned GitHub today said that its generative artificial intelligence tool GitHub Copilot Chat is available to all enterprises through a limited public beta for businesses on Visual Studio and VS Code. The Copilot Chat is a central feature of GitHub Copilot X.

To be sure, GitHub Copilot X was first announced in March, ‘designed to bring the power of generative AI and GPT-4 throughout the entire developer experience on GitHub’. It features a ChatGPT-like chat window that gives context-aware answers to developer queries, provides documentation, and offers explanation and analysis of code blocks. The Copilot chat can also make suggestions for reducing the number of vulnerabilities found in security scans.