[News Terms] 'DONDA' Leading the AI Market

Five Companies Including DeepMind, OpenAI, and Nvidia
Likely to Lead Not Only the Stock Market but Also AI and Semiconductor Industries
Attract Massive Funds Through Successful Investment Raises

Recently, the prominence of artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor sectors has become even more pronounced. Not only overseas but also domestic companies are striving to secure competitive advantages by strengthening AI capabilities and building cooperative relationships.

In this AI industry ecosystem, 'DONDA' is gaining attention. DONDA is a coined term derived from the first letters of the English names of five leading companies in the AI market. It refers to Deepmind, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Databricks, and Anthropic. Except for the UK-based Deepmind, all other companies are headquartered in the United States. Experts predict that these five companies will lead not only the stock market but also the AI and semiconductor industries for some time.

Logos of 5 'DONDA' Companies [Photo by Company Websites]

Deepmind, a subsidiary of the American company Google, is the developer of the Go AI program AlphaGo. AlphaGo is well known in Korea for its 4-1 victory over Go player Lee Sedol (41) during the match held from March 9 to 15, 2016, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul. CEO Demis Hassabis (48) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year for developing the protein-generating AI 'AlphaFold.' Last year, Deepmind co-developed the multimodal (LMM) generative AI chatbot 'Gemini' with Google, competing against OpenAI's 'ChatGPT.'

OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman (39), is famous for its conversational AI chatbot 'ChatGPT.' In October, OpenAI successfully raised $6.6 billion (8.7 trillion KRW) in new funding, boosting its corporate valuation to $157 billion (208.1 trillion KRW). This achievement placed it third among the most valuable startups, following TikTok owner ByteDance ($225 billion) and space exploration company SpaceX ($200 billion). On the 16th (local time), OpenAI announced the free availability of 'ChatGPT Search,' a search function previously exclusive to paid subscribers, entering into competition with Google, which holds 90% of the global search market.

The 'AI blue-chip stock' that heated up the U.S. stock market this year is undoubtedly NVIDIA. Led by Jensen Huang (61), the company recorded a closing price of $139.1 on the New York Stock Exchange on the 6th of last month, pushing its market capitalization to $3.43 trillion (4,850 trillion KRW). On that day’s closing price, NVIDIA surpassed Apple ($3.38 trillion) to become the company with the highest market cap. This marked the first time in five months since it briefly overtook Microsoft (MS) in June. According to data from John Peddy Research, NVIDIA holds a 90% share of the GPU market, effectively monopolizing it.

DONDA [Photo by AI Image]

Databricks is a big data specialist company. Its 'Data Lakehouse Platform' integrates the advantages of data warehouses and data lakes. Companies can use the data lakehouse to store, manage, and utilize all their data on a single platform. Recently, Databricks was valued at $62 billion (89 trillion KRW) through investment funding, establishing itself as one of the most valuable private companies worldwide.

Anthropic is the most recently established among the five companies. Founded in 2021 by CEO Dario Amodei (41), a former OpenAI member, along with his sister Daniela and two others, the company was created in opposition to OpenAI’s commercialization. Anthropic is a public-benefit corporation with a unique legal structure. While it pursues profit, it simultaneously seeks shareholder and public interests. Leveraging the outstanding development capabilities of former OpenAI members, Anthropic released the generative AI chatbot 'Claude,' growing into a strong rival to OpenAI.