GTC 2020: Using AI to help put COVID-19 in the rear-view mirror

This year’s GTC is Nvidia’s biggest event yet, but – like the rest of the world – it’s had to adapt to the unusual circumstances we all find ourselves in. Huang swapped his usual big stage for nine clips with such exotic backdrops as his kitchen.

AI is helping with COVID-19 research around the world and much of it is being powered by NVIDIA GPUs. It’s a daunting task, new drugs often cost over $2.5 billion in research and development — doubling every nine years —...

5 October 2020 | Healthcare

GTC 2020: Nvidia doubles-down on its UK AI investments

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, has kicked off the company’s annual GTC conference with a series of AI announcements—including a doubling-down of its UK investments.

NVIDIA is investing heavily in the UK’s accelerating AI sector. The company announced its acquisition of legendary semiconductor giant Arm for $40 billion back in September along with the promise to open a new AI centre in Cambridge.

“We will create an open centre of excellence in the area once home to...

5 October 2020 | Nvidia

Facebook uses AI to help people support each other

Facebook has deployed an AI system which matches people needing support with local heroes offering it.“United we stand, divided we fall” is a clichéd saying—but tackling a pandemic is a collective effort. While we’ve all seen people taking selfish actions, they’ve been more than balanced out by those helping to support their communities.

Facebook has been its usual blessing and a curse during the pandemic. On the one hand, it's helped people to stay connected and...

2 October 2020 | Facebook

Full-stack AI solution SingularityNET switches Ethereum for Cardano

Full-stack AI solution SingularityNET is switching the Ethereum blockchain for peer-reviewed rival Cardano.

SingularityNET is a decentralised AI marketplace which has the ultimate goal of forming the basis for the emergence of the world’s first true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

One of the brightest and most respected minds in AI leads the SingularityNET project, Dr Ben Goertzel.

“Current speed and cost issues with the Ethereum blockchain have...

1 October 2020 | AGI

AI is helping mobile operators to cope with pandemic demand

Artificial intelligence is helping telecoms operators to boost the RAN capacity of their 4G networks by 15 percent.

More people than ever are relying on telecoms networks to work, play, and stay connected during the pandemic. Operators are doing all they can to ensure their existing networks have enough capacity to cope with demand.

Gorkem Yigit, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason, said:

“Video streaming continues to experience high year on year growth and...

30 September 2020 | Adoption

What happens when Google’s chatty bot chats with a chatbot?

Google Duplex impressed and scared the world in equal parts when it was unveiled, and now we've seen how a conversation goes with another chatbot.

Duplex, for a quick primer, is Google's AI-powered voice bot which can call businesses on a person's behalf for things such as booking hair appointments. It's so realistic that everyone has decided that bots must declare themselves as such before chatting with a human.

A company known as PolyAI – which specialises in...

25 September 2020 | Bots

Microsoft is granted exclusive rights to use OpenAI’s GPT-3

Microsoft and OpenAI's close relationship has taken another leap forward with the former gaining exclusive GPT-3 access.

GPT-3 has been the talk of the AI town in recent months. OpenAI’s innovation can help to create convincing articles and the company once deemed it too dangerous to release in a world where misinformation and fake news is already problematic.

OpenAI never made GPT-3 publicly available but instead provided access to a limited number of trusted...

23 September 2020 | Microsoft

Google returns to using human YouTube moderators after AI errors

Google is returning to using humans for YouTube moderation after repeated errors with its AI system.

Moderating a large network like YouTube is no easy task. Aside from the sheer volume of content uploaded every day, moderators are subjected to the worst of humanity and often end up requiring therapy. They're the unsung heroes.

AI has been hailed as helping to deal with some of the aforementioned issues. Either by automating the moderation process entirely or by offering...

21 September 2020 | Adoption

Researchers achieve 94% power reduction for on-device AI tasks

Researchers from Applied Brain Research (ABR) have achieved significantly reduced power consumption for a range of AI-powered devices.

ABR designed a new neural network called the Legendre Memory Unit (LMU). With LMU, on-device AI tasks – such as those on speech-enabled devices like wearables, smartphones, and smart speakers – can take up to 94 percent less power.

The reduction in power consumption achieved through LMU will be particularly beneficial to smaller...

17 September 2020 | Neural Network

A(I)hoy, mateys: IBM’s crewless ocean research ship to launch ‘very soon’

IBM’s crewless AI-powered ship is due to begin roaming the oceans this month, collecting vital data about something we still know incredibly little about.

Humans have travelled the sea in some form for tens of thousands of years—with the earliest crossings occurring around 53,000 to 65,000 years ago (when Australo-Melanesian populations migrated into the Sahul landmass – known today as Australia and New Guinea – from what used to be the Sundaland...

15 September 2020 | IBM