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Yahoo to spin off its AI scaling engine Vespa

Yahoo to spin off its AI scaling engine Vespa

Yahoo is to spin off its own AI scaling engine platform Vespa. The spin-off should make this platform more widely available, the IT provider says.

According to Vespa, the company has matured, and the spin-off should result in other companies being able to benefit from the technology more. Yahoo will continue to support Vespa to ensure that it becomes one of the world’s largest and most advanced ML and database management platforms.

Vespa functionality

The AI scaling engine Vespa was once the result of Yahoo’s acquisition of the search technology company AlltheWeb. The software developed by this small company was initially used by the former search giant and Internet platform to support shopping services.

In 2017, Yahoo made the Vespa technology open-source and the AI technology was mainly used to decide what response users received to their input, for example through text entered in a search field.

Today, Vespa has evolved into a big data and AI tool combined with a search engine and vector database. The tool now supports about 150 applications from the Yahoo platform. Among other things, it provides personalized content for Yahoo pages in real-time and manages targeted ads. The Vespa servers serve about 1 billion people and process 800,000 search queries per second. Other companies, such as Spotify and retail chain Otto, now also use the technology as a standalone version.

Possible Yahoo IPO

Experts say Vespa’s spinoff could be a stepping stone for Yahoo for a new IPO. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone would like to restore the company to its former glory, and an IPO is an option in that regard.

Also read: Yahoo! will flourish or bury itself forever with plans for an IPO