Zapata AI, which bills itself as an “industrial generative AI” technology company, recently announced an expansion of its ongoing partnership with auto racing giant Andretti Global that Zapata said will be worth an additional $1 million.
Though the expansion was not announced until mid-April, Zapata AI said it entered into the new agreement on March 28, the same day that the completion of its merger with Andretti Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) related to Andretti Global, was announced. The completion of that deal allowed Zapata AI to commence public trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ZPTA.” In the weeks since, the company’s stock price has slipped from its IPO mark of above $10 per share to less than $2 per share at the end of last week.
The expanded partnership “formally recognizes Zapata AI as Andretti’s official AI Partner,” according to a company statement. “The Andretti expansion will contribute to significant, sequential quarter-over-quarter bookings growth for Zapata AI, and is one of numerous customer growth opportunities Zapata is pursuing in financial services, telecom, manufacturing, defense, logistics and other industries.”
Zapata AI uses “quantum math,” algorithms, and related techniques to strengthen generative AI processing and applications. Under the expanded agreement, the company will build an AI-ready database application to manage and update dynamic records for all previous Andretti racing configurations for every driver, in every race, across all Andretti racing series from current and prior seasons, including INDYCAR, INDY NXT, Formula E, Extreme E, IMSA Sportscar, Super Copa, and Supercars racing–in addition to supporting future, planned racing series. The application will also inform Zapata AI models for other use cases the company is currently delivering for Andretti, the statement said.
“Zapata AI has been a valuable innovation partner supporting our strategy and engineering teams in pursuit of winning more races, and they have added value on and off the track as we enter our third race season together,” said Michael Andretti, CEO and Chairman at Andretti Global. “Zapata AI’s generative AI and technical expertise has helped us unlock real-time race insights that we didn’t think were possible. We’re looking forward to building on the foundation we’ve laid together, and we’re proud to have them as our official AI and Quantum Partner. The results we’ve seen so far have been impressive and we’re only just getting started.”