This week’s news features interesting developments with regards to fundraising. Sinovation Ventures landed Spanish bank BBVA as a new LP, and BenevolentAI raised over $100mm to continue its development of AI for drug discovery.
Company developments:
Jack Ma says Alibaba ‘doing a lot of research’ on driverless cars – Apr. 19, 2018 (Phys.org)
- “What we want to do is (figure out) how we can make the cars more automatic, more friendly, more like a partner of human beings rather than just a driving tool,” he said
- Ma was speaking at a press conference in Bangkok after signing agreements with the Thai government, including a more than $300 million investment in a “digital hub” in eastern Thailand aimed at connecting regional markets
Marlabs Launches mAdvisor, a Next Generation AI and Cognitive Computing Platform – Apr. 19, 2018 (PR Newswire)
- Marlabs Inc., a leading digital transformation firm based out of New Jersey, U.S., announced today the launch of mAdvisor, an AI and Cognitive Computing Platform. Positioned as ‘Data Scientist in a Box’, the solution enables enterprises to overcome the shortage of data scientists, which is a key challenge for AI adoption using automated machine learning and cognitive computing
- mAdvisor employs cognitive technologies like Machine Learning, Machine Reasoning, Natural Language Generation, and Natural Language Processing to simulate human-like behavior to automate intellectual tasks like data analysis, prediction, and forecasting. This enables key business users to get faster and more accurate insights for decision-making
- The unique differentiators of the product are automated pattern discovery, automated prediction and presentation of insights in the form of narratives (using NLG) for easy comprehension. mAdvisor is the outcome of continuous innovation efforts over the last two years resulting in several patents in the areas of AutoML, Machine Intelligence, and Natural Language Generation
Ford intends to launch self-driving car service ‘at scale’ by 2021 – Apr. 15, 2018 (Digital Trends)
- Ford seems determined to meet its 2021 deadline to launch a service in the United States using its self-driving cars. And it’s not talking about some small test operation in a single city — it wants to launch and operate its own service “at scale,” with all the necessary components in place to ensure it’s both efficient and profitable
- Besides developing the autonomous technology to power its cars, a big part of Ford’s current work in Miami is learning about the kind of business model that works best for itself and its customers, as well as the most efficient way to keep its fleet of driverless vehicles maintained
- To help drive its autonomous-vehicle ambitions, Ford last year invested $1 billion in artificial intelligence company Argo A.I
Fundraising / investment:
BenevolentAI gets $115M to harness AI for new drug discovery – Apr. 20, 2018 (Mobi health news)
- BenevolentAI, a UK company using artificial intelligence for drug development, has raised $115 million in new funding, mostly from undisclosed investors in the United States. Existing backer Woodford Investment Management also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funds raised to over $200 million
- The company is harnessing the power of machine learning for the task of drug discovery. The company doesn’t develop the drugs itself, nor does it license out the AI software to drug companies. Instead, the company sells the intellectual property discovered by the algorithm
- The company has already discovered 11 new drug targets. It will use the new funding to scale development activities, improve the capabilities of its AI, and extend into more disease areas (current areas include motor neuron disease, Parkinson’s disease, glioblastoma, and sarcopenia). The funds will also be used to develop new businesses outside of health, including materials, agriculture, and energy
Sinovation, co-founded by the ex-head of Google China, nabs $50M from BBVA for its $500M AI fund – Apr. 16, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- Sinovation Ventures, a Chinese VC co-founded by the ex-head of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, has raised a new fund of $500 million to invest in AI startups out of the region. Now, the first tranche of investment has been announced for it: $50 million from Spanish bank BBVA
- No investments have yet been made out of Sinovation Fund IV, which was formally made public in an SEC Form D fundraising filing this month. According to a statement from BBVA, the $50 million investment is the first money that has been announced, but it sounds like the larger $500 million total has already been committed
- The BBVA investment into Sinovation is notable for a couple of reasons. The first is that it gives some visibility into how one of the bigger funds coming out of Asia to focus on AI is raising its money. While a number of VC firms in the West are tapping into money from Asia and the Middle East to build their funds, this is a sign of how it is also working in the reverse, fueled by a boom of interest globally in AI and a big wave of innovation specifically coming out of China
Partnerships:
Alibaba Gets its Smart Assistant Into Chinese Mercedes, Audis – Apr. 22, 2018 (Bloomberg)
- Daimler AG, Volkswagen AG and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.’s Volvo join some 100 brands Alibaba says it’s partnered with. The Chinese e-commerce giant has so far sold more than 2 million speakers featuring Tmall Genie, a digital assistant modeled on Amazon’s Alexa that offers voice-controlled services from music streaming to newscasts and calendar-booking
- Benzes, Audis and Volvos are among the most popular luxury car brands in China, the world’s biggest auto market. Alibaba will connect drivers with Tmall Genie or their smart speakers at home so they can, for instance, check that doors and windows are closed and locked and that vehicle parts such as the battery are in good condition
- Drivers can also perform simple in-car tasks such as turning on the air-conditioning or planning a route. Alibaba’s AI Labs is now working on integrating the AliGenie platform more deeply into vehicles’ operating software, to support voice commands, navigation and entertainment features in future
Volkswagen Expresses Interest in Forming Alliance for Driverless Cars – Apr. 21, 2018 (FutureCar)
- Volkswagen is keen on developing autonomous driving technology for its wide range of automotive products and brands. In order to streamline the process, the company expressed interest in collaborating with other businesses and startups in the rapidly proliferating sector
- The company already has a partnership with Hino Motors – a subsidiary under Toyota Motor Corporation. The two groups formed an alliance (Joint Alliance Board), which allows Volkswagen to tap into Hino’s highly valuable Asia network. Moreover, the duo will share various technologies, in relation to electric powertrains and autonomous driving platforms
- It is important to point out that Volkswagen is directly competing with Toyota, which owns a 50.1 percent stake in Hino. Based on the details of the alliance between Volkswagen and Hino, the focus of the collaboration will be commercial trucks. This would then allow both parties to take on Daimler, which currently dominates the space
UK and India join forces on driverless cars, virtual reality and artificial intelligence – Apr. 18, 2018 (Telegraph)
- Britain is pledging £14m for a four-year technology partnership with India that it hopes will generate thousands of new jobs across the UK
- The technology alliance, which will initially focus on developing driverless cars, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, follows on from the success of the UK-Israel Tech Hub, which generated £62 million worth of deals over the past five years
Government / policy:
Facial recognition system to screen departing foreign visitors in Japan – Apr. 22, 2018 (Japan News)
- The Justice Ministry plans to expand the use of a facial recognition system at Haneda Airport to four other airports
- The system, which currently screens the faces of Japanese nationals returning home, will also be used for foreigners leaving Japan from fiscal 2019. It allows a single immigration officer to oversee multiple stations, freeing other officers to screen foreigners for entry and deal with suspicious persons
- This fiscal year, the government plans to start installing a total of 134 more machines at Haneda, Narita, Kansai, Chubu and Fukuoka airports. From next fiscal year, the machines would also be used to screen foreigners leaving the country at the five airports
Congressman Steve Knight Supports Call For Joint Office On Artificial Intelligence – Apr. 21, 2018 (Hometown Station)
- “For over half a century, the United States has enjoyed sole ownership of the most advanced military and defense technologies in the world. This has led to commensurate advancements in the civilian tech sector and provided us with diplomatic and economic leverage to protect our interests around the globe,” said Knight. “However, in recent years, competitors like China and Russia have been aggressively trying to close this gap by conducting their own research or stealing ours. Intentional investments across the services for capabilities like AI, hypersonics, and other cutting-edge programs is critical, and will help focus the Department’s efforts to maintain our advantage over other nations “
Connecticut Launches Program for Testing Autonomous Vehicles – Apr. 19, 2018 (BodyShop)
- Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy announced the launch of a pilot program that allows testing of self-driving vehicles in as many as four municipalities in the state
- Public Act No. 17-69, which Malloy signed into law in June 2017, requires towns and cities to submit an application to the state before allowing testing of fully autonomous vehicles on their roadways
This AI expert found it “both exciting and scary” that Xi Jinping reads his book – Apr. 19, 2018 (Quartz)
- Xi Jinping’s bookshelf includes not only classics on communism but also works on artificial intelligence, as TV viewers spotted during his new year’s speech this year. One of the books that helps the Chinese president understand AI is The Master Algorithm, a 2015 bestseller by Pedro Domingos
- “Exciting because China is developing rapidly, and there are all sorts of ways the Chinese and the rest of the world can benefit from AI. Scary because this is an authoritarian government, going full tilt on using AI to control their population. In fact, what we are seeing now is just the beginning. Like any technology, AI gives you the power to do good and evil. So far, we have been focusing on the power to do good, and I think it is enormous. But the power to do evil is there, too” – Pedro Domingos
Studies / breakthroughs:
Machine learning techniques may reveal cause-effect relationships in protein dynamics data – Apr. 17, 2018 (Phys.org)
- At the University of South Florida, researchers are integrating machine learning techniques into their work studying proteins. As they report in The Journal of Chemical Physics, one of their main challenges has been a lack of methods to identify cause-effect relationships in data obtained from molecular dynamics simulations
- Varma and colleagues believe machine learning approaches can make a difference. “Developing and using machine learning techniques will enable us to find cause-effect relationships in protein dynamics data and begin to finally address some of the very fundamental questions in protein allostery,” he said. “One of our key findings was that the signal initiated at the stimulation site of the protein appeared to weaken as it moved away from the stimulation site. It came as a surprise, because no distance dependence was observed for the coupling of thermal motions between protein sites.”
- The group’s work demonstrates how machine learning approaches can be used to identify cause-effect relationships within data. Beyond this, “these techniques are allowing us to plug critical gaps in protein allostery,” Varma said. “Ultimately, when our methods are applied to the many proteins of pharmaceutical interest, we expect the mechanistic details to reveal much-needed new intervention strategies for restoring protein activities in diseased states. The general biophysical insights we gain should also help to inspire novel biomimetic solutions for many nanoengineering problems, such as nanosensor design for targeted drug delivery.”
Events:
Bytom’s AI + Blockchain Algorithm Debut at MIT as Chinese Blockchain Industry Takes Off – Apr. 20, 2018 (PR Newswire)
- The “Bytom Algorithm Public Release” Conference has been successfully held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on April 15, 2018. This is the first international public disclosure on details of Bytom’s AI-friendly Tensority algorithm by founder of Bytom Duan Xinxing and the Bytom team, and also the first time for a Chinese team to release theses on Artificial Intelligence and blockchain at MIT
- The innovative consensus algorithm “Tensority” created by Bytom is based on the tensor calculation with advantages from other consensus algorithms. A glamorous development would be the adoption of the Matrix mechanism as the fundamental component of AI deep learning. Based on the innovations above, it enables the PoW more pervasive and friendly to ASIC, meanwhile its dedicated consensus equipment could be engaged in AI cloud acceleration to reduce wastage of resources and endow calculation with more social value
- In 2017, the State Council officially issued the ‘New generation artificial intelligence development plan’, in which it was pointed out that AI would occupy a very important position in the development of the country. It is expected that the scale of China’s Artificial Intelligence market will have reached 100 billion by 2018. This is comparable to cloud computing in rapid growth, as the infrastructure for cloud computing has rapidly expanded – 30% of Intel’s server business is now provided for cloud computing companies. And the server sales in the Asia-pacific region alone have increased by 9.7%. Cloud computing’s rapid growth is to the server market what AI is to the ASIC chip market. It is within expectations that when the scale of the AI market reaches hundreds of billions, the market scale of the ASIC chip market certainly will reach tens of billions
Stanford Medicine’s Big Data in Precision Health Conference set for May 23-24 – Apr. 18, 2018 (Stanford.edu)
- The sixth annual Big Data in Precision Health Conference, set for May 23-24 at the Stanford University School of Medicine, will showcase the power of big data science to improve human health
AI Interpreter Fail at China Summit Sparks Debate about Future of Profession – Apr. 17, 2018 (Slator)
- Tencent’s AI powered translation engine, which was supposed to perform simultaneous transcribing and interpreting at China’s Boao Forum for Asia last week, faltered badly and became the brunt of jokes on social media. It even made headlines on the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s main English newspaper – which, incidentally, is owned by Tencent’s key rival Alibaba
- The Boao Forum, held in Hainan Province on April 8-11, 2018, is an annual nonprofit event that was started in 2001. Supported by the region’s governments, its purpose is to further progress and economic integration in Asia by bringing together leaders in politics, business and academia for high-end dialogs and networking
Linguamatics Spring Text Mining Conference 2018 to Feature Speakers from Leading Biomedical Organizations – Apr. 17, 2018 (PR Newswire)
- Linguamatics, the leading natural language processing (NLP) text analytics provider, today announced its Spring Text Mining Conference 2018 will feature presentations from several top-tier biomedical organizations. The conference, taking place April 23 to April 25 in Cambridge, England, will highlight the wide range of ways that organizations are leveraging I2E, Linguamatics’ powerful NLP-based AI technology, to extract actionable insights from the huge amount of unstructured data available in healthcare and the life sciences
- In addition to presentations from AbbVie, Bayer, Merck KgaA, Mundipharma, and Novo Nordisk, the conference will offer hands-on training for users, opportunities for exchanging ideas and networking, sessions on industry trends and best practices, and demonstrations of the latest Linguamatics technology updates
- “We are seeing ever broader use of NLP for research, intellectual property and real-world evidence,” said David Milward, chief technology officer for Linguamatics. “We are looking forward to learning more about the innovative ways our customers are taking advantage of our text mining technology, and to share details on the latest enhancements to our technology stack, including NLP and machine learning updates