Highlights this week are dominated by new developments in the autonomous vehicle world. Baidu continues to add new partners with the separate additions of Ford and Volvo this week. Waymo also had a big win this week becoming the first company to receive a permit from the California DMV that allows for fully autonomous vehicle testing without a safety driver.
Big week for Samsung as they announced an acquisition of Spanish AI company Zhilabs to bolster their 5G capabilities, and separately opened an AI research center in Montreal (their 4th AI center in North America).
Meanwhile on the partnership front, Baidu became the 1st major Chinese tech company to join the American-led Partnership for AI (PAI). Current members include Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, who also collaborate with government entities like the UN and Human Rights Watch.
Big week across the board in the AI world. To start, there were a few developments related to social good including Microsoft’s $40mm fund dedicated to developers focused on solving humanitarian problems and Google using its AI to predict floods in India. We definitely to see more of this. For the major company developments, look no further than DeepMind partnering with Unity to develop simulated AI training environments and Ford potentially eyeing an IPO for its self-driving car unit.
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 »
This week we saw some interesting M&A activity. Microsoft made yet another acquisition in the field of AI. This time they acquired Lobe, who’s developed an AI drag and drop tool. In addition we saw U.K. based Medopad acquire Sherbit to continue to enhance their AI driven disease detection solutions. KPMG has previously said Medopad… Read More »
Big highlight this week is China Growth Capital’s Wayne Shiong predicting that Chinese AI companies could see their valuations decrease by 30-50%, reflecting signs of a liquidity crunch. My take is it’s too early to tell if the valuation hits will actually happen. You have to look at it on a macro / political perspective… Read More »
Heavy week on the fundraising side. In particular, lots of Chinese AI startups raised money this week including Moviebook, Suiyuan, and Tianrang. In addition to startup fundraising, nonprofits were big winners this week as well. AI4All, a nonprofit working to increase diversity and inclusion in artificial intelligence, received a $1mm grant from Google. It’s great to… Read More »
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 »