Tag Archives: Amazon

What’s happened in AI: December 3rd-9th

By | December 10, 2018

Despite recent reports of Chinese VCs pulling back AI investment, many top AI players continue to raise large amounts of cash. ByteDance, the $75bn unicorn that has now surpassed Uber’s valuation, is in talks to raise another $1.45bn. The use of proceeds is to pursue their aggressive global expansion plans. 

Meanwhile in the U.S., Republican Senator John Thune and Democratic Senator Gary Peters circulated a draft of a revised self-driving vehicle bill aimed at breaking a legislative stalemate. With the pace of innovation in the field, let’s hope they get this passed sooner rather than later.

What’s happened in AI: November 19th-25th

By | November 27, 2018

There were a few interesting developments this week in various areas of AI. On the autonomous vehicle front, GM’s Cruise is now expanding to Seattle. Ultimately they’re aiming to hire up to 200 engineers for the office there. Seems like GM is really making a big push this year to expand across the U.S. with their autonomous vehicle program.

Meanwhile, one of the most high profile AI events will be moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues for many of the attendees. Yoshua Bengio (founder of Element AI) made the call this past Saturday for the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR). He noted that many researchers from the Black in AI group where particularly facing visa difficulties. This is a real positive step for fostering an inclusive and diverse environment for AI research.

What’s happened in AI: October 8th-14th

By | October 17, 2018

Another week, another win for Google’s AI program. This time, its Lymp Node Assistant (LYNA) achieved 99% accuracy in metastatic breast cancer detection. Hopefully these types of applications of AI continue, in particular, to other types of cancer. Meanwhile on the autonomous vehicle front, we have numerous developments from companies and governments. Arizona is launching… Read More »

What’s happened in AI: September 17th-23rd

By | September 24, 2018

Big event this week was the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2018 held in Shanghai. We saw numerous announcements from countries, tech firms, and individuals throughout the event. Highlights include a new partnership on AI between Japan and China, and Amazon’s new research center in Shanghai. Company developments: Amazon launches Scout, a machine learning-powered visual shopping… Read More »

What’s happened in AI: August 27th-September 3rd

By | September 4, 2018

Busy week leading into Labor Day weekend. Highlights are centered around the autonomous vehicle world with one of Apple’s self-driving cars getting rear-ended, and Toyota investing $500mm into Uber. Very interesting move by Toyota given their own autonomous vehicle program and Uber’s have struggled compared to peers. Maybe this partnership provides synergies that aren’t immediately… Read More »

What’s happened in AI: July 16th-22nd

By | July 23, 2018

This past week has been quite a busy one. Highlights include Apple’s increased investment in its autonomous vehicle program, Softbank’s push to invest in Sensetime, Microsoft’s AI/cloud partnership with Walmart, Zoox’s $630mm potential investment round, and much more. Company developments: Get down with Google’s new pose-matching machine learning experiment – July 20, 2018 (Android Authority)… Read More »

What’s happened in AI: June 10th-17th

By | June 18, 2018

Another busy week in AI. In particular, I’ve noticed more news on AI’s impact on the continent of Africa. Highlights there include Google’s new AI research center in Ghana, Zimbabwe looking to expand their AI capabilities with the help of China, and a great profile of Azuri Technologies’ initiatives to bring solar energy to east… Read More »