Nvidia Reportedly Bought a Synthetic Data Firm. So What's Synthetic Data?

Chipmaker Nvidia is leaning further into producing tools for generative AI developers with the acquisition of synthetic data firm Gretel for more than $320 million, according to a report from Wired on Wednesday. The move comes as generative AI firms struggle to find enough data to train and improve their models, increasing the need to generate data. According to the report, Gretel's employees will be folded into Nvidia. Gretel, which produces synthetic or simulated data for AI model training, will bolster Nvidia's offerings for AI developers. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment on the report. Why synthetic data matters Training generative AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT, a large language model, requires a lot of data. Real-world data can pose problems for AI developers -- namely, it can be noisy, and there isn't enough. AI firms are running up against the limit of training data that is freely available to them, leading to conflicts over whether they can use copyrighted con ... Read full article.