Lots of M&A this week in the AI world with Termset (NLP), Textkernel (recruiting), and Crunchbot (chatbots) all being acquired. Many enterprises are finding out that sometimes it’s easier to acquire AI talent than develop it in-house, especially if it’s outside of a particular domain of expertise for the acquirer.
Other news this week includes a few developments in the autonomous vehicle world. Waymo is set to test driverless cars out in Michigan, while Apple cut 200 jobs in its autonomous vehicle division (Project Titan). Not sure what’s going on with Apple, but it’s definitely not the best sign as competitors ramp up research, investment, and personnel additions.
Company developments:
Apple Just Slashed 200 Jobs in Its Autonomous Vehicle Division – Jan. 24, 2019 (Fortune)
- Apple cut about 200 jobs from its secretive autonomous car division, Project Titan, CNBC reported early this morning. The move is being described as an “anticipated restructuring.”
- Apple (AAPL, +7.06%) acknowledged the layoffs. “We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple,” the spokesperson told CNBC
Alphabet CFO: Our AI is so good we can detect breast cancer with less data than ever – Jan. 22, 2019 (CNBC)
- At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said her company was able to make a major breakthrough in metastatic breast cancer detection with less data using artificial intelligence
- Porat said “ever less data” is needed to achieve breakthroughs thanks to AI. In October, Google claimed it created an AI agent that could “correctly distinguish a slide with metastatic cancer from a slide without cancer 99% of the time,” according to a blog post
Waymo will build self-driving cars in Michigan – Jan. 22, 2019 (Engadget)
- Waymo just took another major step toward bringing self-driving cars into the mainstream. The Alphabet-owned brand has received approval to establish a factory for its driverless vehicles in Michigan. This will be the first factory in the world to be completely devoted to mass-producing Level 4 autonomous vehicles, the company said
- It may be a while before the first vehicles roll off the line. Waymo first plans to “identify a facility” somewhere in southeastern Michigan, and it’s not clear when that factory might be ready. The company hopes to create “hundreds” of local jobs over the space of a few years
M&A:
CareerBuilder acquires Textkernel to bolster job-finding tools with AI – Jan. 23, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- Chicago-based CareerBuilder is no different in this respect. The 25-year-old company has a specialized team of more than 200 data scientists, engineers, and specialists focusing on AI. Today, as part of what the company is calling an “additional investment,” it has announced the acquisition of Textkernel, a Netherlands-based startup developing AI-driven sourcing, lead generation, and labor market statistics analysis tools
- Textkernel, which was founded in 2001 and employs about 120 people, began as a commercial research and development spinoff with a focus on natural language processing and machine learning at the Universities of Tilburg, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. It offers a multilingual resume parser and semantic search tools for software vendors, job boards, market research outfits, and temporary staffing agencies, and its clients include the likes of Monster, Manpower, Bosch, and Bullhorn
CoreView Acquires TermSet to Strengthen Security Capabilities for Enterprises – Jan. 22, 2019 (PR Newswire)
- CoreView, the leading SaaS management platform (SMP) for Office 365, announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire TermSet, a privately held company based in the United Kingdom. TermSet provides solutions that unlock the information inside documents by using Natural Language Processing (NLP) based on Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Customers use the solutions to manage GDPR-sensitive data and improve discoverability and productivity. This acquisition strengthens CoreView’s ability to help organizations ensure security, enforce compliance, and streamline operations
Qlik Acquires CrunchBot and Crunch Data to Augment Conversational Analytics Capabilities – Jan. 22, 2019 (Olean Times Herald)
- Qlik today announced it has acquired the CrunchBot AI-powered analytics bot along with Crunch Data Inc.’s experienced team of AI and solution development professionals. Now users can interact with and understand their data using natural language through Qlik Sense and within leading collaboration tools such as Slack, Skype, Salesforce Chat and Microsoft Teams
- According to Gartner, “By 2020, 50% of analytical queries will be generated via search, NLP or voice, or will be automatically generated”. (1) Qlik’s customers already benefit from augmented intelligence and natural language search capabilities within Qlik, and CrunchBot expands and extends those capabilities through a conversational, natural language interface
Fundraising / investment:
Blue Prism to issue $130M in stock to raise new funds – Jan. 24, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Just this morning, robotic process automation (RPA) firm Blue Prism announced enhancements to its platform. A little later, the company, which went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2016, announced it was raising £100 million (approximately $130 million) by issuing new stock. The announcement comes after reporting significant losses in its most recent fiscal year, which ended in October
- While the company’s revenue more than doubled last fiscal year, from £24.5 million (approximately $32 million) in 2017 to £55.2 million (approximately $72 million) in 2018, losses also increased dramatically, from £10.1 million (approximately $13 million) in 2017 to £26.0 million (approximately $34 million), according to reports
AI chip startup Hailo Technologies expands series A to more than $20 million – Jan. 22, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- Artificial intelligence (AI) chips — that is, microprocessors optimized for machine learning workloads — are poised to attract tens of billions of dollars in investment capital within the next decade. Allied Market Research forecasts that they’ll be a $37.8 billion industry by 2025, fueled by growing demand for faster, cheaper, and higher-efficiency AI model training and inference hardware
- One of the latest to mount a run for the gold is Hailo Technologies, a secretive Israeli firm that emerged last summer with $12.5 million in series A funding. Its laser focus on edge devices and high-resolution sensory processing helped it to stand out in a crowded field, and this week catapulted it to an expanded round of financing
Kaia Health gets $10M support for AI-powered management of chronic pain – Jan. 21, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Kaia Health, a self-styled digital therapeutics” startup, has pulled in $10 million in Series A funding for an app-based approach to chronic pain management. The idea is to offer an alternative to painkillers, using mobile technology to deliver what the founder describes as multimodal, “mind body therapy” for musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders — comprised of guided physical exercises, psychological techniques and on tap medical education
- Kaia has around 250,000 users at this stage, via a b2c solution as well as organizations in Europe and the U.S. which make its app available (such as via medical insurance). The new funding will be put towards scaling up in the U.S. especially with a new office for New York City, with Mehl saying they want to flip the current usage ratio of 80% Europe; 20% U.S.
Flexciton is using AI to help factories optimise production lines – Jan. 21, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Flexciton, the London-based startup that is using AI to help factories optimise production lines, has raised £2.5 million in funding, in a round led by Backed VC. Also participating is Join Capital and company builder Entrepreneur First. The young company pitched at EF’s 6th London demo day in 2016
- Riding the so-called “Industry 4.0” wave, Flexciton has developed an AI-driven solution to optimise the way manufacturers plan and schedule “multi-step production lines,” which it says is a complex mathematical task faced by all manufacturers. It’s also traditionally quite a manual one, with existing software solutions still leaving a lot of the heavy lifting to humans
Partnerships:
Microsoft and MIT can detect AI ‘blind spots’ in self-driving cars – Jan. 27, 2019 (Engadget)
- Self-driving cars are still prone to making mistakes, in part because the AI training can only account for so many situations. Microsoft and MIT might just fill in those gaps in knowledge — they’ve developed a model that can catch these virtual “blind spots,” as MIT describes them
- The approach has the AI compare a human’s actions in a given situation to what it would have done, and alters its behavior based on how closely it matches the response
CyberLink FaceMe® Provides Altek with Highly Secure 3D Anti-Spoofing Facial Recognition Solution – Jan. 21, 2019 (AP News)
- CyberLink Corp. (5203.TW), a pioneer of AI-enabled facial recognition technologies, today announces the integration of its AI facial recognition engine FaceMe®, into Altek Corp.’s (3059.TW) 3D depth sensing solutions. The integration strives to enhance the anti-spoofing capabilities of smart security systems, enabling them to accurately detect facial images and videos apart from live human faces
- Altek Corp. is an expert in digital camera applications including consumer, autotronic, and medical imaging. Paired with 3D cameras and CyberLink’s FaceMe® AI Facial Recognition engine, Altek’s AL6100 3D depth sensing chip can prevent fraudulent facial images or videos from being incorrectly identified by smart security systems, and deliver reliable, highly-accurate facial biometrics
Research / studies:
MIT CSAIL researchers propose automated method for debiasing AI algorithms – Jan. 26, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- In a paper (“Uncovering and Mitigating Algorithmic Bias through Learned Latent Structure“) scheduled to be presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society in Honolulu this week, MIT CSAIL scientists describe an AI system that can automatically “debias” data by resampling it to be more balanced
Pentagon Researchers Believe A Wasp’s Brain Can Lead To An AI Breakthrough – Jan. 25, 2019 (Analytics India)
- In a call for submission of research papers in the field, Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), had recently announced that it is looking for submissions on computational framework and capabilities of small flying insects
- As part of the department’s Artificial Intelligence Exploration (AIE) programme, the chosen researchers will have to submit concepts aimed at understanding sensory and nervous systems in miniature insects and develop models that could be mapped onto suitable hardware in order to emulate their functioning
AI Helps Amputees Walk With a Robotic Knee – Jan. 25, 2019 (IEEE Spectrum)
- This new application of AI, which is based on reinforcement learning—an automated version of classic trial-and-error—has shown promise in small clinical experiments involving one able-bodied person and one amputee whose leg was cut off above the knee
- Normally, human technicians spend hours working with amputees to manually adjust robotic limbs to work well with each person’s style of walking. By comparison, the reinforcement-learning technique automatically tuned a robotic knee, enabling the prosthetic wearers to walk smoothly on level ground within 10 minutes
Erosion in wind-turbine blades solved with help of AI – Jan. 22, 2019 (Wind Power Engineering & Development)
- The results of the antiAGE project exceeded expectations. Through a design process using virtual testing and machine learning, VTT was able to develop an optimized solution to a very difficult material problem in less than a year: a highly durable material that hardens when exposed to mechanical stress
- VTT is also applying for additional funding for the project, since there are plenty of targets for optimized material solutions in other sectors of industry as well. The more complex the product, the more expensive it is to develop materials suited for a specific purpose, and the more difficult it is in general to find material solutions that perform well. AI allows such problems to be addressed with efficiency
Chinese university unveils open platform for AI knowledge computing – Jan. 21, 2019 (Xinhua)
- Tsinghua University on Monday unveiled THUKC, an open and free platform for knowledge computing, with aims to push forward China’s basic theoretical research on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Tsinghua University debuted the platform as it announced the establishment of the Knowledge Intelligence Research Center under its Institute for Artificial Intelligence
- The platform includes knowledge graphs like language knowledge graph HowNet in Chinese and English, web-based encyclopedia knowledge graph XLORE, based on Wikipedia and its Chinese counterpart Baidu Baike, and science and technology information service platform Aminer, covering more than 200 million research papers
Government / policy:
Mexican state of Coahuila to deploy 1,100 cameras with facial recognition – Jan. 25, 2019 (Biometric Update)
- The northern Mexican state of Coahuila, which borders Texas, is looking to purchase 1,100 public security cameras equipped with artificial intelligence software for vehicle and facial recognition, BNAmericas reports
- According to Governor Miguel Riquelme, the US$30M, five-year contract is being negotiated with Chinese video surveillance company Dahua Technology. “The time for deployment once the contract is signed will be from six to nine months,” he added
Caterers in China are reportedly using AI to spot unhygienic cooks – Jan. 25, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- If you’ve ever harbored doubts about the hygiene of the cooks flipping your burger and frying your fries, you’re definitely not the only one. Thepaper.cn (via the South China Morning Post) reports that local authorities in eastern China have tapped artificial intelligence (AI) to clamp down on unsanitary cooks in kitchens — and to reward those who adhere to best practices
- According to the report, a camera-based system currently being piloted in the Zhejiang city of Shaoxing automatically recognizes “poor [sanitation] habits” and alerts managers to offending workers via a mobile app. It’s reportedly the fruit of a six-year project — Sunshine Kitchen — that seeks to bring transparency to food preparation in catering, hotels, school cafeterias, and restaurants
In Davos, U.S. executives warn that China is winning the AI race – Jan. 23. 2019 (Washington Post)
- Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, who travels frequently to Asia, said he sees an explosion of new AI businesses in China. “When I go to China, there’s almost an endless stream of people who are showing up developing new companies. The venture business there in AI-oriented companies is really exploding with growth,” Schwarzman said on a panel
- The Chinese government has made tech dominance a priority in its “Made in China 2025” plan. Chinese leaders are pouring government money into AI research and development in a scientific push that has been compared to the space race or the Manhattan Project that the U.S. government funded during World War II to develop a nuclear weapon
ACLU sues for records on facial recognition use by the Department of Justice – Jan. 21, 2019 (Fedscoop)
- The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Justice demanding any records on the agency’s use of facial recognition technology
- The request is extensive. The organization is asking for 20 distinct sets of records ranging from any policy direction on the use facial recognition to “records relating to inquiries to companies, solicitations from companies, or meetings with companies about the purchase, piloting, or testing of face recognition, gait recognition, or voice recognition technology” and beyond. The group additionally wants any records showing the accuracy rates of the systems employed and records showing what audit work has been done to determine or assess the accuracy rate
Israeli Venture Capitalist Warns Against Cybersecurity, AI Collaborations With China – Jan. 21, 2019 (CTech)
- Israel should not collaborate with China on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and critical infrastructure projects, domains in which it should favor “democratic regimes,” Israeli venture capitalist Erel Margalit opined speaking at a Tel Aviv event Sunday. Margalit is the founder and chairman of venture capital firm Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a Jerusalem-based venture capital firm backed by several China-based limited partners, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., that has several cybersecurity firms on its portfolio
- Speaking Sunday at a conference at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art hosted by the Israel Innovation Authority, an Israeli government tech investment arm, Margalit said he views partnerships with China-based entities favorably in domains that are not as sensitive, including foodtech, medical technologies, and retail