This week the autonomous trucking world added another Unicorn. TuSimple raised a $95mm Series D round to expand its autonomous truck fleet to over 50 vehicles by June. Definitely a player to look out for in this area. Other weekly news can be found below. Company developments: Waymo’s autonomous vehicles leave Apple in the dust… Read More »
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.
Some end of the year AI blues for the U.S. gov’t. Recent reports have indicated the Pentagon is concerned the U.S. is losing its AI advantage to China and Europe. Democratic lawmakers also pushed back against a compromise bill for self-driving vehicles. Will be interesting to see how legislature approaches AI in 2019. My guess is it will slip again, but hopefully I’m proven wrong.
There’s something about the week after Labor day. It seems like every industry starts firing on all cylinders with deals, meetings, and new developments. The AI industry is no different as we saw a plethora of fascinating developments. Highlights include Renesas’ $6.7bn purchase of IDT to expand further into autonomous vehicles, the Pentagon’s $2bn investment… Read More »
This week was relatively light compared to others, but nonetheless, there were some important developments. In particular, Microsoft revealed another failed chatbot. This time it’s so politically correct that it’s cringeworthy. Speaking of failed AI technology, Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Sens. Ron Wyden, Chris Coons, Ed Markey and Cory Booker are pushing for an investigation… Read More »
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 »
Big news this week with Microsoft’s $7.5bn acquisition of GitHub. Other news this week includes numerous developments in the autonomous vehicles space, with announcements from Waymo, GM, Ford, Innoviz, Cadillac, Volvo and more. We also received word that the White House plans to release government data to help advance the speed of AI developments. It… Read More »
This week featured many positive news stories. Most notable was the use of new facial recognition software by police in India to find thousands of missing children. Always great to see the use of AI to help make the world a safer and better place. Company developments: IAI developing autonomous vehicles – Apr. 29, 2018… Read More »