Here's what you need to know this week about artificial intelligence in the Bay Area: a San Francisco commercial real estate rally, two news licensing deals, OpenAI's new board member, funding rounds and more must-reads.

How big is the AI boom? AI companies are leasing millions of square feet, enough to fill a modern San Francisco skyscraper several times over.

Venture firms invested in an estimated 15,260 funding rounds for U.S. startups for the year, PitchBook reported. Assuming that number holds up, it would mark an increase of about 4% from the prior year. It would also be the first time the number of funding deals increased on an annual basis since 2021.

Balaji was discovered dead in his San Francisco apartment on his birthday in November. He had stayed at OpenAI for almost four years but quit in August 2023.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson that aired on Thursday, Balaji’s mother, Poornima Rao cast doubts over the current investigation into her son’s death and ruled out suicide

Waymo’s acceleration was all the more striking in a year that saw General Motors shut its Cruise robotaxi unit after pouring $10bn into the venture since 2016, as well as Apple abandoning its Project Titan car project.

Silicon Valley startups received over half of 2024's global VC funding, hitting $90 billion out of $178 billion.

Nvidia has used its ballooning fortunes to invest in over 80 AI startups. Here are the giant semiconductor's largest investments.

Omi employs advanced AI technology, always listening and processing conversations through GPT-4o. It can even remember context about each user to give personalized advice. To tackle privacy concerns, Shevchenko has built Omi on an open-source platform where users can see where their data is going or opt to store it locally.

J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is officially underway, bringing the healthcare and biopharma industries' biggest wheelers and dealers to San Francisco. | The annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is officially underway,

McKInney-based Cytracom, a provider of infrastructure software for managed service providers (MSPs), has acquired Telivy, marking what it called another milestone in the company’s evolution to deliver a comprehensive technology platform for MSPs.

This year’s JPMorgan health-care conference took place a month after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in New York City.