Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence
How artificial intelligence is driving the growth of startups – YourStory
We are sailing through the year 2021, and technology is the default way of operations for businesses of all sizes. New-age technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) have disrupted the business environment of both big and small organisations, enabling them to operate intelligently and efficiently in the hyper-competitive era.
Interestingly, the use of AI is no longer only limited to large, established enterprises. In fact, it is the small mushrooming startups that are harnessing its potential more to scale up, innovate, and remain competitive in the current times.
As per a recent report from PwC, the use of AI will lead to 14 percent increase in global GDP by 2030, with startups contributing significantly towards this growth.
Lets delve deep into how AI is driving value and advantage for new-age startups and making them more agile.
Scaling up operations is deemed critically important for early-stage companies. However, too many manual processes along with an unclear view of the evolving customer needs and industry behaviour keeps the team tied up in the day-to-day mundane operations and limits the companys future growth prospects.
With AI taking the centre stage, the road to advancement for these emerging companies becomes bright and less lofty.
Implementation of highly competent business intelligence tools such as machine learning algorithms, predictive analysis, advanced computing, etc, showers valuable data-driven insights, empowering startups to act and operate intelligently. Small businesses are able to well optimise their resources, improve productivity and impart quick and effective customer experiences in the most timely and cost-effective manner.
With too many new companies emerging every now and then, constant innovation and differentiation becomes a key to their survival. Unless there is something unique to offer to the ever-demanding consumers, startups face a constant risk of losing the battle and becoming extinct.
Thus, these next-gen intelligent solutions are a key requisite for start-ups to innovate at scale and remain competitive at all times.
Needless to say, AIs adoption is increasing tremendously for all enterprises, big or small, alike. Of course, technology is not a magical wand which can avert the difficult situations that start-ups might face in their growth journey.
However, it can certainly and surely equip these organisations to overcome such situations with greater power, by putting the necessary control measures in place. Also, the pandemic has driven companies to a point, where integrating with new-age technologies is no longer a choice but a key necessity.
Clearly, the smarter startups that are able to embrace AI-led innovation will be able to respond to future events in a timely and efficient manner without hindering their growth process. So, are you one of them?
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)
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How artificial intelligence is driving the growth of startups - YourStory
Artificial intelligence to power the banks of the Future – Google – IT Brief New Zealand
A new report shows AI will power personal customer experiences in the digital financial revolution.
Artificial intelligence will deliver personalised experiences and reshape the world of banking as we know it, according to a new report from SaaS banking platform Mambu and Google Cloud.
The Bank of the Future whitepaper identifies ubiquitous banking as the next frontier in the digital financial revolution and reveals three building blocks that will enable the future of banking:
Driving this change is a combination of disruptive forces in the market. The report shows the pandemic has increased consumer demand for always-on, personalised digital and mobile-first financial services. Unlike 20 years ago, traditional banks are no longer the go-to for those looking to move or manage their money.
With better access to cloud services and increasing competition from a new wave of fintech and non-traditional players, incumbent banks are under threat as consumers turn to neo banks and digital challengers in search of a better customer experience and utility-led services, according to the report.
"The report shows the world banks were originally created to serve no longer exists," says Mambu CEO, Eugene Danilkis.
"Historically built to last, today banks need to be built to change. If traditional players want to reposition themselves as lifestyle partners, in tune with the modern banking needs of their customers, then they must evolve rapidly - and without fear," he says.
Key to this will be their embrace of AI technology that has broad applications from fraud prevention and risk management to delivering personalised customer experiences and driving efficiencies through greater automation. But banks must act fast if they want to avoid getting left behind. Only by leveraging the capabilities of AI and cloud technologies will they be able to reimagine the customer experience and tap into new revenue streams in a competitive market.
"As the financial services industry continues to digitally transform, there is an increased need for solutions that help businesses deliver personalised experiences to customers," adds Joachim Wuest, director, Financial Services Industry, Google Cloud.
"We look forward to partnering with groups like Mambu to bring AI-powered solutions to banking organisations as they move along their digital transformation journeys."
Myles Bertrand, Managing Director APAC at Mambu, says, "In Asia Pacific, we are seeing changing consumer demands for more personalised services driving innovation in financial services.
"What this report highlights is that it's vital for banks and financial services looking to compete in the digital era to understand the value of different technologies like AI, utilise cloud-based core banking software to ensure maximum flexibility, and build their products and services based on what their customers actually want and need," he says.
The report points to changing regulations, such as the introduction of open banking and PSD2, as forces accelerating the disintermediation of traditional banking providers. With dedicated regulation now emerging for fintech and digital banks in some jurisdictions, it's a case of adapt or die for incumbent players.
But banks have one asset on their side - data. With around a billion credit card transactions every day, banks have access to one of the most significant volumes of customer data of any industry. Using AI, banks can harness this information to unlock unparalleled insights and growth.
McKinsey estimates that AI technologies could deliver up to $1 trillion of additional value each year for the global banking industry, combining a deep understanding of customer needs with the composable cloud architecture to roll out hyper-personalised services at scale.
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Artificial intelligence to power the banks of the Future - Google - IT Brief New Zealand
How Has Artificial Intelligence Affected The Casino Industry? – KHTS Radio
When some people think about artificial intelligence, they think about giving robots intelligence, and the possible robot apocalypse they believe will follow when machines become more intelligent than humans. But there is more to artificial intelligence than giving robots intelligence. Sure, AI deals with giving devices and computers some of the cognitive capabilities humans intrinsically possess, but the applications go far beyond robotics.
Using the casino industry as an example, this article will explain two significant applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI has had a significant impact on how many industries market themselves. AI is part of the reason many people believe that their machines are spying on them. You know, when you type about something or like it on one website and the next thing you know, you see recommendations on another website for that exact thing? Artificial intelligence has a part to play in that.
When you visit most websites, they often ask you to accept cookies. But what are cookies? Cookies are bits of information about you saved during your browsing experience. Many websites use them to personalize your browsing experience, so the next time you visit, you do not have to input all your information afresh, but sometimes, these websites also sell your data to third-party companies like Ad companies.
This personalization helps make your browsing experience smoother in some cases, but there is much more to learn about why many websites ask you to accept cookies than this.
The internet has millions of users. Websites and the companies behind them would be hard-pressed to go through each individuals browsing data to provide them with personalized experiences like personalized ads. These companies employ AI-powered systems to do this grunt work and deliver these customized experiences to users. In the case of delivering ads to potential customers, companies do something called user-targeted marketing.
You may now understand why you liked your friends post when they won a jackpot on the Intertops Red Casino, and the next time you were browsing, you were met withIntertops Red Casino bonus codes. This is how companies ensure that their ads are put in front of people who have a high chance of being interested in their ads. This helps increase theirconversion rates.
The internet has grown over the years, not just in terms of how much information there is but also in usage. There are many more people using the internet today than there were 15 years ago. Additionally, many businesses have also shifted and expanded their service delivery modes to serve customers both online and offline. As a direct result, some companies have grown exponentially and now have a broader customer base.
This growth in eCommerce is definitely a good thing for the businesses themselves. Still, there are some downsides, and one of the biggest ones is how much more is expected of the business in terms of customer support. Think about, for example, a casino that used to serve clients in its brick-and-mortar institution but that now has an online platform and now has to serve 500,000 more people. Coupled with the challenge of adjusting to the online platform, much more will be expected of the casinos customer service personnel if the casinos customers are to be helped adequately.
One of the most significant ways AI has affected customer service is through automated customer support. Rather than have to employ many more customer support agents to help customers, casinos are now taking advantage of AI-powered customer support systems to offload some of the tasks that customer agents do.
If you are an avid internet user, you have no doubt had an encounter with an AI-powered automated customer service system. One typical example is a chatbot on a website. In this way, casinos can serve more customers without spending too much money on too many customer service employees.
As you can see, there is much more to AI than robotics. Hopefully, this article has enlightened you on two major applications of AI to help businesses like casinos work better.
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How Has Artificial Intelligence Affected The Casino Industry? - KHTS Radio
Filings buzz in the power industry: 16% increase in artificial intelligence mentions in Q2 of 2021 – Power Technology
Mentions of artificial intelligence within the filings of companies in the power industry rose 16% between the first and second quarters of 2021.
In total, the frequency of sentences related to artificial intelligence between July 2020 and June 2021 was 190% increase than in 2016 when GlobalData, from whom our data for this article is taken, first began to track the key issues referred to in company filings.
When companies in the power industry publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Artificial intelligence is one of these topics - companies that excel and invest in these areas are thought to be better prepared for the future business landscape and better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.
To assess whether artificial intelligence is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of companies in the power industry, two measures were calculated. Firstly, we looked at the percentage of companies which have mentioned artificial intelligence at least once in filings during the past twelve months - this was 73% compared to 46% in 2016. Secondly, we calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that referred to artificial intelligence.
Of the 50 biggest employers in the power industry, ABB Ltd was the company which referred to artificial intelligence the most between July 2020 and June 2021. GlobalData identified 101 artificial intelligence-related sentences in the Switzerland-based company's filings - 2.1% of all sentences. Vestas Wind Systems AS mentioned artificial intelligence the second most - the issue was referred to in 1.5% of sentences in the company's filings. Other top employers with high artificial intelligence mentions included Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc, Ebara Corp and Tokyo Gas Co Ltd.
Across all companies in the power industry the filing published in the second quarter of 2021 which exhibited the greatest focus on artificial intelligence came from Energisa SA. Of the document's 1,359 sentences, 15 (1.1%) referred to artificial intelligence.
This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on artificial intelligence and how important the issue is considered within the power industry, but it also has limitations and should be interpreted carefully. For example, a company mentioning artificial intelligence more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the company's ventures into artificial intelligence have been successes or failures.
GlobalData also categorises artificial intelligence mentions by a series of subthemes. Of these subthemes, the most commonly referred to topic in the second quarter of 2021 was 'smart robots', which made up 76% of all artificial intelligence subtheme mentions by companies in the power industry.
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Filings buzz in the power industry: 16% increase in artificial intelligence mentions in Q2 of 2021 - Power Technology
U.S. and UK Form Real Bond Over Artificial Intelligence Capabilities – ClearanceJobs
There is nothing remotely artificial about the Special Relationship that exists between the United States and the United Kingdom. The shared history, common language, and close relations have resulted in a partnership that has existed for more than a century. Now the two nations could be working together in the fields of autonomy and artificial intelligence, and how it can be best utilized by their respective militaries.
The United States Air Force Research Laboratory, in partnership with the United Kingdoms Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), recently demonstrated for the first time the ability for the two nations to jointly develop, select, train, and deploy state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms in support of the armed forces of each of the two nations.
According to the United States Research Laboratory, this research was developed and devised to support adjacent, collaborating U.S. and U.K. brigades with enduring wide-area situational awareness, which aims to improve decision-making, increase operational tempo, reduce risk to life and reduce manpower burden.
The technology was demonstrated via an in-person and virtual event hosted jointly at AFRLs Information Directorate in Rome and Dstl at its site near Salisbury in the U.K. on Oct. 18. It highlighted integrated artificial intelligence (AI) technologies being developed by the two partner nations, and showcased the ability of the partners to share data and algorithms through a common development and deployment platform. The goal of this program is to enable the rapid selection, testing and deployment of AI capabilities.
The event was made possible by a U.K. and U.S. partnership agreement concerning autonomy and AI collaboration that was established last December. It was also just the first of a rotational series of events to be hosted by the joint and international signatories of the Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration (AAIC) Partnership Agreement and effort led by the United States Department of the Air Force, with AFRL as the lead agency for the Air Force, and in partnership with United States Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSDR&E), as well as the U.S. Navy and Army, and the U.K.s Dstl.
The event was attended in-person by leadership participants from both nations, and was virtually attended by participants from all services and the OUSDR&E.
We are dedicated to getting robotics and autonomous systems capability into the hands of the warfighters, said Dr. Robert W. Sadowski, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. Advances in robotics and autonomy will make our formations more capable and mission-ready while providing protection to our warfighters through unprecedented stand-off while enabling enhanced lethality on the battlefield.
The current four-year partnership agreement has noted several objectives that include efforts to accelerate joint U.K./U.S. development and sharing of AI technology and capabilities, with the agreement spanning from foundational research in test verification and validation to AI algorithm research and development, to joint experiments advancing Joint All Domain Command and Control capabilities of both nations.
The event demonstrated how the U.K. and U.S. can integrate AI technology to create the first end-to-end machine learning research, development and deployment ecosystem enabling rapid data sharing, algorithm development, evaluation and deployment, explained Dr. Lee M. Seversky, AFRL lead for the demonstration and the U.S. Project Agreement. AI will play a critical role in accelerating decision making to meet the pace and scale of the future battlespace.
During the demonstration, a simulated scenario focused on how the U.K. and U.S. could both cooperate and share AI capabilities to support the close fight, while both countries operated in adjacent areas and shared data and AI algorithms during the virtual mission execution.
The demonstration further brought together key technologies from the U.K. in the form of Model Cards, which were used to provide a commander with the ability to quickly understand, explore and select appropriate machine-learning models that could be deployed in a mission; while the U.S. showed its streamlined machine learning. That is a government-owned, extensible, open platform to quickly build machine learning workflows, train and evaluate machine learning models, and deploy them regardless of the source or machine learning software stack use. It can take advantage of the best of breed machine learning technology spanning commercial, academia and government.
The collaboration between the U.S. and UK military research labs aims to come up with answers to challenges inherent to modern warfare, namely enhancing decision making in what are likely to be highly complicated engagements with increasingly automated weaponry, explained Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.
At this point, the labs involved are working on development efforts that should lead to autonomous, AI-enabled tools and systems that will help commanders make faster, more informed decisions leading to better outcomes while also minimizing risks to troops engaged in a battle or stationed nearby, King told ClearanceJobs.
Those are laudable goals but the effort also highlights the importance and value of the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom, King added. Following the turmoil of the past couple of years, it is heartening to see the two countries working so well and closely together.
The emphasis on AI is crucial to future warfighting abilities, and this partnership highlights the role that the technology could play. The British Ministry of Defence has already invested heavily in AI, which could be employed with the Royal Navy on unmanned vessels, while the British Army has considered how AI could help the service overcome a shortage of manpower.
Future wars will likely be defined by AIs which can act and react faster than humans, and the only viable defense for an artificial intelligence weapon is an AI defense, suggested technology industry analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.
Collaboration is critical to the speed of advancement, but it also increases the risk of IP theft and sabotages it will increase external, from the development teams perspective communications, Enderle told ClearanceJobs. However, the development speed and economies of scale advantages may exceed the increased security risks. And having a significant competitive advantage here could not only make the difference between winning and losing the war but also keep a hostile nation from attacking you in the first place.
The U.S. military has seen how AI could be utilized as a force multiplier for pilots, sailors and ground troops alike.
Given AI will increasingly control all major weapons systems, it has the potential, both in offense and defense, to significantly outperform conventional weapons while severely limiting collateral damage, added Enderle. AI can act far more surgically than humans.
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U.S. and UK Form Real Bond Over Artificial Intelligence Capabilities - ClearanceJobs
2 Artificial Intelligence Stocks That Have Spooked Investors – Motley Fool
Year to date, Riskified and Lemonade are both down about 25%. This poor performance thus far, however, does not necessarily mean they are down and out.
Both of these companies are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to disrupt their industries. While many investors have demonstrated their pessimism about the future through the stocks' prices, here's why you should not be so quickly spooked by these price drops.
Image source: Getty Images.
Lemonade (NYSE:LMND) is reinventing the insurance business, including how consumers apply for coverage and get claims approved. Its first AI bot, "Maya", can approve or deny applications in two minutes, while its other bot, "Jim", can make decisions on payouts to customers in as little as three seconds. This is a model that has been largely unreplicable by legacy insurance providers such as Aflac (NYSE:AFL), a legacy insurer that was founded well before the age of AI.
Lemonade's use of AI has led to faster processes, which has led to happier customers. According to a study conducted by independent insurance marketplace Clearsurance, Lemonade ranked first out of 270 renters insurance companies in terms of customer satisfaction. A whopping 98% of Lemonade customers saying they would recommend the company to a friend.
The company had a rough first quarter due to payouts related to the "Texas Freeze" -- another reason why the stock is down 65% from the all-time high it hit in January. Despite this, the business has been moving in the right direction: The company's gross loss ratio --the percentage of revenue paid out in claims -- decreased 7 percentage points year over year, showing that the company can bounce back from hard times.
The company grew its customer count by 48% year over year to over 1.2 million in Q2, and increased its premium per customer by 21% to $246. This combined to produce a 91% increase in in-force premiums to $297 million. Lemonade began issuing two new policy types this year -- life insurance and car insurance -- demonstrating its ability to capitalize on new growth avenues.
The stock is valued highly, especially considering that Lemonade's business is still unprofitable. Its price-to-sales ratio of 42 is high, but not as high as the 100 times sales valuation it had at its peak. Trading at 100 times sales was extreme, even for a quality company like Lemonade, and I think the valuation has simply fallen to the high price that investors have to pay for quality growth companies. Its forward price-to-sales ratio is 33 times sales, which has fallen 60% from its highs.
Another thing that spooked investors this year was the Texas Freeze, which significantly hurt Lemonade. Its gross loss ratio for Q2 2021 was 121%, which sent many investors running for the exits, even though it grew its in-force premium 89% to $252 million. Even through the Freeze, Lemonade's innovation within the space holds tremendous potential, and investors are starting to see this through its growth, customer satisfaction, and its financials. Lemonade's vision may take decades to play out, but investors who are willing to remain patient could be well rewarded.
As the hype from its July IPO has faded, Riskified (NYSE:RSKD) has been hit hard. It's now down 47% from its all-time high. Riskified uses AI to detect fraud in e-commerce transactions, and it has been effective at doing so. The company has a chargeback guarantee -- if its platform approves a fraudulent order, it will cover the losses its client takes -- and these losses are represented in its cost of goods sold. Riskified's cost of goods sold has decreased in Q2 2021 compared to 2020 -- decreasing from 47% of revenue to 40% -- proving that its AI and determinations have become more accurate.
Along with the chargeback guarantee, Riskified's top 10 clients experienced an average 38% decline in their operating expenses while netting 8% more sales. It's no wonder then that three out of the 10 largest online retailers use Riskified. Landing these customers has led to 55% growth in gross merchandise volume under management in Q2 2021 compared to the year-ago quarter, along with 47% revenue growth to $56 million.
The primary risk for Riskified is its path to profitability. The company lost $20 million in Q1 2021, which grew over 180% from the year-ago quarter. Most of this net loss, however, is from interest expense related to the IPO, but the company would still be losing $2 million without the interest expense. Given that the company is trading at a lofty 18 times sales, this risk could be unaccounted for the stock price, and investors are pricing in a lot of future growth. The bright side of this is that the company has $120 million in cash and is generating $3.7 million in free cash flow, so for now, it can supplement its own losses.
While this main risk is important to recognize, there are signs that the company could become profitable if it lands more big customers. Riskified has already landed customers like Wayfair (NYSE:W), Wish (NASDAQ:WISH), and Gymshark, and continued its growth into several large international markets like Australia, China, and the UK. If Riskified becomes the top dog in this industry internationally by continuously benefiting its customers and landing big clients, shareholders could reap the benefits.
This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.
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2 Artificial Intelligence Stocks That Have Spooked Investors - Motley Fool
Northwell Health and Aegis Ventures to form first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence venture to drive better, more equitable, and lower-cost…
NEW HYDE PARK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Northwell Health, New Yorks largest healthcare provider, and Aegis Ventures, a New York-based startup studio, today announced they are forming a joint venture (JV) that will ideate, launch, and scale AI-driven companies to address healthcares most challenging quality, equity, and cost problems. The JV will assemble leading medical, technology, and business resources to create a first-of-its-kind company creation platform for healthcare innovation. Aegis Ventures intends to invest at least $100 million of seed-stage funds through the platform to catalyze a significant multiple of that amount from the venture capital and investment community.
The JV will work with stakeholders across the Northwell system to create new patient care solutions through collaboration with frontline clinicians, working side-by-side from ideation to implementation, to develop innovations that use AI to predict, diagnose, and manage health conditions. The parties have already started work on solutions related to improving maternal health outcomes and chronic disease prediction. Alongside this disease focus, the JV will use AI to identify and eliminate operational inefficiencies in healthcare delivery. All technologies and tools will be identified, developed, and validated within the secure Northwell Health environment to maximize data integrity and privacy. Ultimately, the aim of the JV will be to accelerate the speed with which new lifesaving AI solutions reach the patients bedside.
New York was at the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, and todays announcement places it at the epicenter of innovation that will tackle healthcares most pressing problems, said Michael Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health. This joint venture will leverage data from Northwells patient population, one of the most diverse in the world, along with Northwells intellectual capital in AI technology. Working together, Northwell and Aegis will create companies that bring higher quality, lower cost healthcare to those who need it most.
Northwell has a track record of success in AI research, including the development of a landmark algorithm that predicts patients overnight stability to reduce the need to wake them for vital sign checks. Developed using 26 million measurements from 2.3 million patient visits, the algorithm helps reduce nighttime disturbances to speed patients recovery and discharge. In addition, Northwell serves one of the most diverse patient populations in the United States. Caring for more than 2 million people annually across 23 hospitals and hundreds of other facilities provides the health systems clinicians and researchers with a unique vantage point into the health and wellbeing of traditionally underserved communities. This perspective will be a key aspect of the Northwell-Aegis JV, which will prioritize innovation to reduce racial and socioeconomic biases that drive health inequities and have impaired existing AI solutions.
Aegis experience in commercialization and Northwells experience in clinical care complement each other perfectly, said Aegis Ventures Chairman Bill Schoenfeld. Our joint platform will bring together the medical, technological, and investment talent to launch new companies that address healthcares most pressing challenges.
In addition to linking clinicians, researchers, patients, and other healthcare stakeholders, the Northwell-Aegis JV platform team will include exceptional entrepreneurs, data scientists, engineers, and industry leaders with the commercial acumen needed to bring these innovations to the patients bedside. From day one, the JV will prioritize the needs of patients and clinicians, and develop best practices in ideation, research, and company creation to significantly accelerate the pace of AI development and adoption. This represents a new, more targeted approach to the way in which venture capitalists and healthcare systems can work together to solve major healthcare challenges.
Our mission is to catalyze a new Moores Law in healthcare where, as we continually improve access, we continually reduce cost, said Tom Manning, Chairman of the Northwell-Aegis JV and former Chairman & CEO of Dun & Bradstreet, the leading global provider of corporate information and data analytics. This new effort promises to transform the model for innovation in healthcare and improve outcomes for everyone, but particularly for people who may be lost in the shuffle and most need our help.
Through the launch of the JV, Northwell and Aegis are committed to building an exceptional team who will embrace this unique opportunity to create impact. To learn more about the JV or register your interest in joining the team that will further these unique opportunities, please visit https://aegisventures.com/healthcare-ai/.
About Northwell Health
Northwell Health is New York States largest health care provider and private employer, with 23 hospitals, 830 outpatient facilities and more than 16,600 affiliated physicians. We care for over two million people annually in the New York metro area and beyond, thanks to philanthropic support from our communities. Our 77,000 employees 18,900 nurses and 4,800 employed doctors, including members of Northwell Health Physician Partners are working to change health care for the better. Were making breakthroughs in medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. We're training the next generation of medical professionals at the visionary Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. For information on our more than 100 medical specialties, visit Northwell.edu and follow us @NorthwellHealth on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About Aegis Ventures
Aegis Ventures is a next-generation startup studio that partners with entrepreneurs and industry leaders to originate, launch, and scale transformative companies. Our platform brings together market-shaping ideas, permanent growth capital, and ambitious individuals driven to solve major societal problems. We aim to build companies with the capacity for vast impact, with an initial focus on three key areas: data and automation, health and wellness, and digital health and health technologies. Within these verticals, Aegis seeks to create companies that leverage technology to better optimize tradeoffs between quality, access, and cost, focusing on innovations that promote seamless continuity of care, patient empowerment, and better-informed clinical decision-making. To learn more about Aegis, visit our website aegisventures.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
An artificial intelligence tool is helping retailers and manufacturers weather the holidays by simulating supply chain issues before they happen -…
Visitors watch a digital twins simulation service system for sports venues by Intel at the Apsara Conference, a cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) conference, in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on October 19, 2021. Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images
Digital twins are used by businesses to run simulations and identify issues before they occur.
Companies are using digital twins to stress-test their supply chains, Technology Review reported.
Digital twins use data on social media, consumers, and global factors to run simulations.
As supply chain disruptions pummel industries across the globe ahead of the holiday season, a simulation tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to help businesses predict disruptions to their supply chains and minimize their effects, according to MIT Technology Review.
Digital twins are virtual representations of real-world objects or systems, such as global supply chains, that are used to run simulations and identify issues before they occur. MIT Data Science Lab Director David Simchi-Levi told Technology Review that an increasing number of companies are using this tool to stress-test their supply chains.
"What if there's a drought in Taiwan and the water shortage shuts down microchip manufacturing? A digital twin could predict the risk of this happening, trace the impact it would have on your supply chain, and - using reinforcement learning - suggest what actions to take to minimize the harm," Technology Review reported.
From consumer behavior to geopolitical implications and social media trends, digital twins use vast amounts of data on a variety of factors to run simulations, which trains their AIs to analyze the data and make predictions, according to Technology Review.
For example, British consumer goods manufacturer Unilever PLC owns over 400 brands and offers its products in more than 190 countries. The company teamed up with Microsoft in 2019 to create digital twins of its 300 global plants to optimize their operation, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A pilot digital twin was created for a Unilever facility in Valinhos, Brazil, that saved the company $2.8 million dollars by cutting down on energy use and driving productivity, the company told WSJ.
While it's mostly large companies currently utilizing the technology, Simchi-Levi told Technology Review that with a million dollars and 18 months, a company could enjoy "many of the benefits" of digital twins.
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An artificial intelligence tool is helping retailers and manufacturers weather the holidays by simulating supply chain issues before they happen -...
China Rapidly Developing Artificial Intelligence, Officials Warn – The National Interest
Officials at the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC)warned on Fridaythat Chinas pursuit of artificial intelligence (AI) technology could havemajor implications for the future of the military and economic competition between the two nations. Among other topics, the warnings restated the U.S. warning against private companies in key areas allowing Chinese investment or expertise, urging them to take significant precautions in protecting their intellectual property.
Under the Trump and Biden administrations, relations between Washington and Beijing have steadily become more acrimonious, with increasing consensus from Americas national security agencies that China represents a strategic threat to the United States. Although Biden has made statements advising againstthe creation of a new Cold War with China, and advocated in favor of working together on mutual concerns such as climate change, relations have still remained tenseparticularly since the onset of thecoronaviruspandemic, when the United States reproached China over for its failure to share certain information about the viruss origins. For its part, Beijing has accused Washington of acting in bad faith.
Artificial intelligence has taken on a particularly prominent role in the Chinese government, which has pushed it, along with other high-tech industries such as robotics, as part of its Made in China 2025 development strategy. It is beyond dispute that much of the know-how for these projects was obtained, licitly or illicitly, from the United States, whichby the Trump administrations estimateloses $600billionof intellectual property to China each year.
The acting director of the NCSC, Michael Orlando, told reporters in a rare press conference that the United Statescould not afford to lose the race to develop new technology with China inkey high-security areas, including AI technology, quantum computing, and semiconductor development.
Orlando, however, stopped short of advising businesses to ban Chinese investment or recommending other policies to reverse the loss of intellectual property.
One area of particular concern to the NCSC has been biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, where China has made considerable acquisitions in the past two years. The agency has warned that Chinese-linked firms in the United Statesbenefit from American medical data, which is returned to Beijing.
Orlando underlined that these developments had to be understood as part of Beijings desire to expand its technical knowledge, rather than the initiative of individual Chinese corporations, which were subservient to the state.
TrevorFilsethis a current and foreign affairs writer for theNational Interest.
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China beats the USA in Artificial Intelligence and international awards – Modern Diplomacy
There is no doubt that the return of Huaweis CFO Meng Wanzhou to Beijing marks a historic event for the entire country that made every Chinese person incredibly proud, especially bearing in mind its timing, as the National Day celebrations took place on October 1.
Where there is a five-star red flag, there is a beacon of faith. If faith has a color, it must be China red, Ms. Meng said to the cheering crowd at Shenzhen airport after returning home from Canada. She also added that All the frustration and difficulties, gratitude and emotion, steadfastness and responsibility will transform into momentum for moving us forward, into courage for our all-out fight.
Regardless of how encouraging the Chinese tech giant heiresss words may sound, the fact remains that the company remains a target of U.S. prosecution and sanctionssomething that is not about to change anytime soon.
When the Sanctions Bite
It was former U.S. President Donald Trump who in May 2019 signed an order that allowed the then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to halt any transactions concerning information or communications technology posing an unacceptable risk to the countrys national security. As a result, the same month, Huawei and its non-U.S. affiliates were added to the Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List, which meant that any American companies wishing to sell or transfer technology to the company would have to obtain a licence issued by the BIS.
In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce decided to expand the FPDP Rule by restricting the Chinese tech giant from acquiring foreign-made semiconductors produced or developed from certain U.S. technology or software and went even further in August the same year by issuing the Final Rule that prohibits the re-export, export from abroad or transfer (in-country) of (i) certain foreign-produced items controlled under the amended footnote 1 to the Entity List (New Footnote 1) when there is (ii) knowledge of certain circumstances, the scope of which were also expanded.
Moreover, the decision also removed the Temporary General License (TGL) previously authorizing certain transactions with Huawei and added thirty-eight additional affiliates of the Chinese company to the Entity List.
In these particular circumstances, despite the initial predictions made by Bloomberg early in 2020 that Trumps decision to blacklist Huawei fails to stop its growth, the current reality seems to be slightly changing for onceand brieflythe worlds largest smartphone vendor.
The impact of the U.S. sanctions has already resulted in a drop in sales in the smartphone business by more than 47% in the first half of 2021, and the total revenue fell by almost 30% if we compare it with the same period in 2020. As is estimated by rotating Chairman Eric Xu, the companys revenue concerning its smartphone sales will drop by at least $30-40 billion this year.
For the record, Huaweis smartphone sales accounted for $50 billion in revenue last year. The company has generated $49.57 billion in revenue in total so far, which is said to be the most significant drop in its history.
In Search of Alternative Income Streams
Despite finding itself in dire straits, the company is in constant search for new sources of income with a recent decision to charge patent royalties from other smartphone makers for the use of its 5G technologies, with a per unit royalty cap at $2.50 for every multimode mobile device capable of connections to 5G and previous generations of mobile networks. Huaweis price is lower than the one charged by Nokia ($3.58 per device) and Ericsson ($2.50-$5 per device).
Notably, according to data from the intellectual property research organization GreyB, Huawei has 3,007 declared 5G patent families and over 130,000 5G active patents worldwide, making the Chinese company the largest patent holder globally.
Jason Ding, who is head of Huaweis intellectual property rights department, informed early this year that the company would collect about $1.2-$1.3 billion in revenue from patent licensing between 2019 and 2021. But royalties will not be the only revenue source for the company.
Investing in the Future: Cloud Services and Smart Cars
Apart from digitizing native companies in sectors like coal mining and port operations that increased its revenue by 23% last year and 18% in the first part of 2021, Huawei looks far into the future, slowly steering away from its dependency on foreign chip supplies by setting its sight on cloud services and software for smart cars.
Seizing an opportunity to improve the currently not-so-perfect cloud service environment, the Chinese tech giant is swiftly moving to have its share in the sector by creating new cloud services targeting companies and government departments. For this purpose, it plans to inject $100 million over three years period into SMEs to expand on Huawei Cloud.
As of today, Huaweis cloud business is said to grow by 116% in the first quarter of 2021, with a 20% share of a $6 billion market in China, as Canalys reports.
Huawei Clouds results have been boosted by Internet customers and government projects, as well as key wins in the automotive sector. It is a growing part of Huaweis overall business, said a chief analyst at the company, Matthew Ball. He also added that although 90% of this business is based in China, Huawei Cloud has a more substantial footprint in Latin America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa as compared with Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud.
Another area where Huawei is trying its luck is electric and autonomous vehicles, where the company is planning to invest $1 billion alone this year. Although the company has repeatedly made it clear that it is unwilling to build cars, Huawei wants to help the car connect and make it more intelligent, as its official noted.
While during the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, Huawei and Arcfox Polar Fox released a brand new Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei Hi and Chinas GAC revealed a plan to roll out a car with the Chinese tech company after 2024, Huawei is already selling the Cyrus SF5, a smart Chinese car from Chongqing Xiaokang, equipped with Huawei DriveONE electric drive system, from its experience store for the first time in the companys history. Whats more, the car is also on sale online.
R&D and International Talent as Crucial Ingredients to Become Tech Pioneer
There is a visible emphasis put on investing in high-quality research and development to innovate both in Huawei and China as a whole.
According to the companys data, the Chinese technology giant invested $19.3 billion in R&D in 2019, which accounted for 13.9% of its total business revenue and $22 billion last year, which was around 16% of its revenue. Interestingly, if Huawei was treated as a provincial administrative region, its R&D expenditure would rank seventh nationwide.
As reported by Chinas National Bureau of Statistics, the total R&D spending in China last year was 2.44 trillion yuan, up 10.6% year-on-year growth, and 2.21 trillion yuan in 2019, with 12.3% year-on-year growth.
As far as activities are concerned, the most were spent on experimental development in 2020 (2.02 trillion yuan, which is 82.7% of total spending), applied research (275.72 billion yuan, which gives 11.3%) and basic research (146.7 billion yuan, accounting for 6%). While the most money was spent by enterprises (1.87 trillion yuan, which gives up 10.4% year-on-year), governmental research institutions spent 340.88 billion yuan (up 10.6% year-on-year), and universities and colleges spent 188.25 billion yuan (up 4.8% year-on-year).
As far as industries go, it is also worth mentioning that high-tech manufacturing spending accounted for 464.91 billion yuan, with equipment manufacturing standing at 913.03 billion yuan. The state science and tech spending accounted for 1.01 trillion yuan, which is 0.06 trillion yuan less than in 2019.
As Huawei raises the budget for overseas R&D, the company also plans to invest human resources by attracting the brightest foreign minds into its business, which is in some way a by-product of the Trump-era visa limitations imposed on Chinese students.
So far, concentrating on bringing Chinese talent educated abroad, Huawei is determined to broader its talent pool by tall noses, as the mainland Chinese sometimes refer to people of non-Chinese origin.
Now we need to focus on bringing in talent with tall noses and allocate a bigger budget for our overseas research centres, said the companys founder Ren Zhengfei in a speech made in August. We need to turn Huaweis research center in North America into a talent recruitment hub, Ren added.
While Huawei wants to scout for those who have experience working in the U.S. and Europe, it wants to meet the salary standards comparable to the U.S. market to make their offer attractive enough.
What seems to be extraordinary and crucial by looking at China through Huawei lens is that it is, to the detriment of its critics, indeed opening to the outside world by aiming at replenishing all facets of its business.
We need to further liberate our thoughts and open our arms to welcome the best talent in the world, to quote Ren, in an attempt to help the company become more assimilated in overseas markets as a global enterprise in three to five years.
The Chinese tech giant aims to attract international talent to its new 1.6 million square meter research campus in Qingpu, Shanghai, which will house 30,000 to 40,000 research staff primarily concerned with developing handset and IoT chips. The Google-like campus is said to be completed in 2023.
The best sign of Huaweis slow embrace of the start-up mentality, as the companys head of research and development in the UK, Henk Koopmans, put it, is the acquiring of the Center for Integrated Photonics based in Ipswich (UK) in 2012, which has recently developed a laser on a chip that can direct light into a fibre-optic cable.
This breakthrough discovery, in creating an alternative to the mainstream silicon-based semiconductors, provides Huawei with its product based on Indium Phosphide technology to create a situation where the company no longer needs to rely on the U.S. know-how.
As for high-profile foreign recruitments, Huawei has recently managed to hire a renowned French mathematician Laurent Lafforgue, a winner of the 2002 Fields Medal, dubbed as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, who will work at the companys research center in Paris, and appointed the former head of BBC news programmes Gavin Allen as its executive editor in chief to improve its messaging strategy in the West.
According to Huaweis annual report published in 2020, the Shenzhen-based company had 197,000 employees worldwide, including employees from 162 different countries and regions. Moreover, it increased its headcount by 3,000 people between the end of 2019 and 2020, with 53.4% of its employees in the R&D sector.
The main objective of the developments mentioned above is to lead the world in both 5G and 6G to dominate global standards of the future.
We will not only lead the world in 5G, more importantly, we will aim to lead the world in wider domains, said Huaweis Ren Zhengfei in August. We research 6G as a precaution, to seize the patent front, to make sure that when 6G one day really comes into use, we will not depend on others, Ren added.
Discussing the potential uses of 6G technology, Huaweis CEO told his employees that it might be able to detect and sense beyond higher data transmission capabilities in the current technologies, with a potential to be utilized in healthcare and surveillance.
Does the U.S. Strategy Towards Huawei Work?
As we can see, the Chinese tech giant has not only proved to be resilient through the years of being threatened by the harmful U.S. sanctions, but it also has made significant steps to become independent and, therefore, entirely out of Washingtons punishment reach.
Although under the intense pressure from the Republicans the U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo promised that the Biden administration will take further steps against Huawei if need be, it seems that there is nothing much that the U.S. can do to stop the Chinese company from moving ahead without any U.S. permission to develop in the sectors of the future, while still making a crucial contribution to the existing ones.
At the same time, continuing with the Trump-era policies aimed at Huawei is not only hurting American companies but, according to a report from the National Foundation for American Policy published in August 2021, it also might deal a significant blow to innovation and scientific research in the country.
Restricting Huawei from doing business in the U.S. will not make the U.S. more secure or stronger; instead, this will only serve to limit the U.S. to inferior yet more expensive alternatives, leaving the U.S. lagging behind in 5G deployment, and eventually harming the interests of U.S. companies and consumers, Huawei said in, what now appears to be, prophetic statement to CNBC in 2019.
On that note, perhaps instead of making meaningless promises to the Republicans that the Biden administration wouldnt be soft on the Chinese tech giant, Raimondo would make the U.S. better off by engaging with Huawei, or at least rethinking the current policies, which visibly are not bringing the desired results, yet effectively working to undermine the U.S. national interest in the long run.
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China beats the USA in Artificial Intelligence and international awards - Modern Diplomacy