Google Cloud AI Platform updates make it ‘faster and more flexible’

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Google has issued several updates for its Cloud AI Platform which aims to make it ‘faster and more flexible’ for running machine learning workloads.

Cloud AI Platform is Google’s machine learning platform-as-a-service (ML PaaS) designed for AI developers, engineers, and data scientists. The platform is end-to-end and supports the full development cycle from preparing data, to training, all the way to building and deploying machine learning models.

Among the most...

29 October 2019 | Cloud

Alibaba unveils Hanguang 800 AI inference chip to speed-up ML tasks

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Alibaba Group has introduced its first AI inference chip called ‘Hanguang 800’ which performs machine-learning tasks efficiently and quickly.

The neural processing unit is already being used to power features on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, including product search and personalised recommendations. The Hanguang 800 will be made available to Alibaba Cloud customers at a later stage.

According to Alibaba, its ecommerce website Taobao previously took an hour to...

26 September 2019 | Hardware

Facebook outage gave a glimpse at how its AI analyses images

Facebook’s issue displaying images yesterday gave users an interesting look at how the social media giant’s AI analyses their uploads.

An outage yesterday meant Facebook users were unable to see uploaded images, providing a welcome respite from the usual mix of food and baby photos. In their place, however, was some interesting text.

Text in the placeholder where the image should have been displayed showed how Facebook’s AI automatically tagged the...

4 July 2019 | Facebook

Volvo picks up Nvidia to assist with AI for self-driving vehicles

Volvo and Nvidia have formed a partnership that will see the pair collaborate on AI technology for self-driving vehicles.

Speaking to investors and media at Volvo’s annual event for the capital-markets community, Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt said:

“Partnership is the new leadership. If we are to succeed in the future with speed, quality, and safety – and to gain benefits of autonomous driving – we need to partner up with the best guys. In this world of...

18 June 2019 | Connected Cars

Research: AI is a ‘welcome boost’ that could add millions to GDP

New research from McKinsey and Quantumblack suggests UK businesses adopting AI could see their value increase by 120 percent within a decade.

AI overall could provide a 22 percent GDP boost worth millions to the UK economy, according to the research.

However, the report warns that firms which do not integrate AI into their day-to-day business risk around 20 percent of their cash flow today.

In separate research last year, McKinsey wrote:

“By 2030,...

11 June 2019 | Europe

Putin outlines Russia’s national AI strategy priorities

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered the best insight yet at what shape the country’s AI strategy will take.

Putin ordered his government apparatus on February 27th to formulate a national artificial intelligence strategy by June 25th. With that date quickly approaching, the world is waiting to see Russia’s AI plans.

Back in September 2017, Putin famously said the nation which leads in AI “will become the ruler of the world.” Understandably, Putin’s...

31 May 2019 | Government

ML algorithm predicts heart attacks with 90% accuracy

A machine learning algorithm claims to predict heart attacks and death from heart disease with a degree of accuracy beating human practitioners.

The algorithm claims to have a 90 percent accuracy. LogitBoost was trained on data from 950 chest pain patients –  from the data, 85 variables are calculated.

Each of the patients have known outcomes after six years. Combined, this algorithm was able to identify patterns which indicates a higher chance of a heart attack...

14 May 2019 | Healthcare

League table shows under 5% of councils are using AI

A league table created by Transformation Network shows that under five percent of councils are using AI for their operations. Furthermore, the ‘vast majority’ have no plans to explore artificial intelligence technology in the future.

The researchers conducted their study due to the dire outlook of councils. According to the Local Government Association, councils in England face a total funding gap of £8 billion by 2025.

A survey by the Local Government Information...

10 May 2019 | Government

Google condenses AI to just 0.5GB for speedy on-device Assistant

During this year's I/O Keynote, Google announced it's managed to condense 100GB of AI to just 0.5GB for a drastically sped-up Assistant.

Google's Assistant has always been among the most impressive, but it's not exactly been known for its speed. Often it felt quicker to just do the task manually rather than wait for Assistant to respond.

The main reason for Assistant’s sluggishness, it transpires, is that it required around 100GB of storage in addition to an internet...

7 May 2019 | Google

How Coca-Cola is using AI to stay at the top of the soft drinks market

As the world’s largest beverage company, Coca-Cola serves more than 1.9 billion drinks every day, across over 500 brands, including Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Fanta, Sprite, Dasani, Powerade, Schweppes and Minute Maid.

Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) power everything that the business does – the global director of digital innovation, Greg Chambers, said: “Artificial intelligence is the foundation for everything we do. We create intelligent experiences. Artificial...

7 May 2019 | Machine Learning