Nvidia Bets Big on Synthetic Data

Nvidia has acquired synthetic data firm Gretel for nine figures, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal. The acquisition comes as Nvidia has been rolling out synthetic data generation tools, so that developers can train their own AI models and fine-tune them for specific apps. In theory, synthetic data could create a near-infinite supply of AI training data and help solve the data scarcity problem that has been looming over the AI industry since ChatGPT went mainstream in 2022—although experts say using synthetic data in generative AI comes with its own risks. The startup offers a synthetic data platform and a suite of APIs to developers who want to build generative AI models, but don’t have access to enough training data or have privacy concerns around using real people’s data. Called Nemotron-4 340B, these mini-models can be used by developers to drum up synthetic data for their own LLMs across “health care, finance, manufacturing, retail, and every other industry.” During his keynote presentation at Nvidia’s annual developer conference this Tuesday, Nvidia cofounder and chief executive Jensen Huang spoke about the challenges the industry faces in rapidly scaling AI in a cost-effective way.