Samsung's Catalyst Fund Is on the Hunt for the Next Big Thing
*By Conor White*
In the arms race between tech giants, there is no such thing as a vacation. For Samsung, it relies on its Catalyst Fund, led by Shankar Chandran, to find the next emerging market.
"A company of our scale, we really have to think about what are those trillion-dollar opportunities?" Chandran asked.
In an interview Friday on Cheddar, Chandran said the Catalyst Fund was on the "front lines", constantly searching for companies and ideas in which to invest.
"The investment team's job is to really be the eyes and ears for the company," he added.
Currently, those eyes are firmly fixed on data and artificial intelligence.
"Almost every single industry will get reinvented by data and A.I. over the next couple of decades," Chandran said.
For Chandran, the value gleaned from combining the two is almost immeasurable.
"Data is the new oil," he said.
Humanity was aware of oil for thousands of years, but it wasn't until the internal combustion engine was created that demand went through the roof, and prices skyrocketed, he added.
"A.I. is the internal combustion engine that changed everything."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/samsung-catalyst-fund-head-talks-evolution-of-vc).
Small-scale solar panels about the size of a door are poised to be plugged into more U.S. homes and apartments as homeowners and renters who want to harness the sun’s energy look for cheaper alternatives to rooftop installations.
Rebecca Bellan, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch, dives into ChatGPT’s GPT‑5 release—what’s new, what’s controversial, and why this model could change the game.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan says he’s “always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards” after coming under pressure following President Donald Trump’s call for him to resign.
A new federal rule would make it easier for companies to use drones over longer distances out of sight of the operator without having to go through a cumbersome waiver process.
Nintendo, the Japanese video game maker behind the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises, is reporting an 18.6% surge in net profit for the first fiscal quarter