by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Reports, Investing, Markets, Technology
New Delhi : With over 36 per cent of large financial establishments investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven technologies and 70 per cent planning to embrace it, India is well poised for AI-led economic transformation, a PwC India and Assocham report said on Friday.
Yet, While AI, Machine Learning (ML) and robotics have a wide range of use cases in financial services sector, their potential has not been fully realised in India, said the joint report.
“Establishing data access frameworks and guidelines for open application interfaces from financial institutions will act as an enabler for increased adoption of AI in the sector,” the findings showed.
AI can be leveraged to protect economic sectors and infrastructure such as airports and power plants that are vulnerable to attacks.
“Anomalous behaviour detection in individuals and infrastructure disruption prediction (natural/man-made causes) powered by the use of distributed sensors and pattern recognition are examples of AI usage potential in the sector,” the report added.
Along with AI applications in defence, robots can be used to perform jobs which are unsafe for humans-
such as recovering explosives, detecting mines, space exploration, deep water probes, scouting for hostile territories, etc.
AI-enabled cyber security systems rely on historical data of cyber attacks and apply ML to predict and detect similar threats likely to arise in the future.
Having automated systems in place for monitoring and detecting risks helps to free up human agents from the time-consuming tasks of having to continually check and categorise these red flags based on their threat level, said the report.
AI-enabled assistive technology for differently abled individuals is an untapped market in India.
“AI, in combination with other emerging technologies like 3D printing and IoT, has great potential to fuel widespread availability, affordability and feasibility of innovations in smart prosthetics,” said the report.
“Forming cooperative relationships with some of the front-runners in AI — such as Japan, the UK, Germany Singapore, Israel and China — to develop solutions that tackle social and economic challenges can aid and accelerate strategy formulation,” it added.
Policy planning in AI must be aimed at creating an ecosystem that is supportive of research, innovation and commercialisation of applications.
The centre and state governments could look at providing fiscal and non-fiscal incentives for AI research/ deployment, the report advised, adding that setting up centres of excellence supporting inter-disciplinary research can further fuel AI adoption in India.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Markets, Technology
By Hardev Sanotra,
Las Vegas : The largest technology show on Earth took off in this hub of the gaming world on Monday with Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking centre-stage as the wonder kid of tomorrows world, promising to bring in sweeping changes in everyones concept of technology.
The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2018 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and other places would showcase products and solutions from almost all the tech giants, bringing in latest innovations and gadgets which would be available for buying or adopting in the coming months.
The Consumer Technology Association, which owns and produces the show going on annually for the last 50 years, estimates the number of visitors to touch 1,70,000, with 3,900 exhibiting companies from 150 countries offering more than just the latest developments in mobile technology, Virtual or Augmented Reality and AI during the tech week. Also present are over 7,000 media representatives.
Many in the tech world were already looking ahead after the mobile phones and wearable devices had stolen a march over personal computers, which triggered off the technology revolution bringing into the homes of the consumers all that is possible through innovation. An epitaph of sorts was being written for the PC.
But as developments in the personal computing spaces show here, the predictions of the demise of PC may have been premature. As David Rabin, Vice President, Commercial Marketing at Lenovo (PC&SD) says: “The PC market is not dead or dying. Those who say so are wrong. We see a strong growth in this segment and the numbers prove it.”
The smart office market, which extensively uses PCs, is in an expansion mode and is expected to hit $100 billion by 2020, he said, adding that the PC is adopting the changes that are rapidly sweeping the tech world across areas.
This year’s tech show comes under the shadow of news that Intel, AMD and ARM chips, that are at the heart of most computers, are vulnerable to security flaws. The news came just days before the show and sent a shock waves through the companies and millions of users.
Because chipmakers had remained unaffected by security issues even as news about major breaches have regularly erupted in some of the best-known companies. Stealing of private data of tens of millions of users has time and again roiled the tech world.
But on Monday, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stepped on stage, aiming to allay fears of the breach through “Meltdown” and “Spectre”, the two vulnerabilities which have affected the chips used in the last two decades.
“Our primary goal has been to keep our customers safe. We have not received any information that these exploits have been used to obtain customers’ data,” Intel CEO told the audience during his keynote address here, urging everyone to patch their systems as soon as these are available.
Microsoft and others had discovered “Spectre” and “Meltdown”. All the big tech giants — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others — have pushed out updates for their devices to fix the vulnerabilities.
This year’s tech show also comes with an array of star speakers and performers from the field of music, movies sports and technology.
“We’re bringing the stars to Vegas. Nearly all of these entertainers and other celebrities are involved in some of the most interesting technology efforts out there. So it’s exciting to have star power on hand,” said Karen Chupka, Senior Vice President, CES and corporate business strategy.
The celebrities include singer and actor Ray J, Rapper Iggy Azalea, rock musician Joe Perry, actor Neil Patrick Harris, guitarist Tommy Shaw, Olympic medallists Usain Bolt and Nastia Liukin, Rock Band Styx, dormer NBA star Shaquille O’Neal and Baron Davis and Star Gigi Gorgeous.
(Hardev Sanotra is at CES 2018 on the invitation of Lenovo. He can be reached at hardev.sanotra@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
Tokyo : Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company Fujitsu and Microsoft on Saturday announced to build new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions that will transform the ways people work.
Based on the Microsoft 365 integrated cloud service, the new solutions will be powered by Fujitsu’s AI technology, Fujitsu Human Centric AI Zinrai, and Microsoft AI platform services on Azure.
“Expanding our collaboration with Fujitsu provides customers with yet another way to take advantage of the powerful and intelligent digital capabilities of our platform to drive more collaboration and creativity,” said Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Commercial Business at Microsoft.
The companies aim to make these new solutions available in the Japanese market from the second quarter of 2018 before a global rollout.
The two companies aim to develop a new $2 billion of new businesses in the global market by 2020.
“The collaboration with Microsoft in AI will bring our relationship into a new phase, and I believe it demonstrates the fruits of digital co-creation,” said Shingo Kagawa, CTO, Fujitsu Limited.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Large Enterprise, Markets, Technology
Bengaluru : As firms’ appetite for the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows, 71 per cent Indian organisations are looking at increased process automation as a key benefit which in turn is expected to spike spends on this technology over the next 18 months, a report said on Thursday.
The Intel India commissioned report, undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that surveyed 194 Indian organisations across sectors, said that nearly 75 per cent of the firms surveyed anticipate benefits in business process efficiency and employee productivity with the use of AI.
While 64 per cent of the respondents believe that this technology can empower them in revenue augmentation through better targeting of offers and improved sales processes, 76 per cent of the companies are or believe that they will face a shortage of skilled personnel to harness the power of AI.
“This research is a small step towards comprehending this knowledge, and enabling companies, such as ours, shape strategy and move ahead in the right direction,” Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Sales and Marketing Group, Intel India, said in a statement.
Intel currently powers 97 per cent of data centre servers running AI workloads worldwide and has been investing in the development of the ecosystem in India.
“Indian enterprises have been quick to adopt AI in the recent past, with nearly one in five organisations (22.2 per cent) across the four verticals surveyed implementing the technology in some way. This number is anticipated to soar considerably by mid-2019 with nearly seven in 10 firms (68.6 per cent) anticipated to deploy (it),” the company said.
However, concerns around adoption of AI continue with high cost of solutions, acute shortage of skilled professionals, unclear return on investment and cybersecurity emerging as the key hindrances.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Events, Social Round-up
Chennai: On the rainy morning of November the 6th, B. S. A. Crescent University played host to the International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, which was scheduled to go on for two days. It involved the presence of some eminent personalities, as well as some upcoming trendsetters in the field of AI. The much anticipated event was flagged off with the recitation of the Quirath.
The welcome address was presented by the Registrar, Dr. V. Murugesan. Followed by this, was a brief outline of the event, and an introduction of Professor Scott Fahlman, of the ’emoticon’ fame, by Dr. P. Sheik Abdul Khader (Dean, SCIMS). He also welcomed, Mrs. Fahlman, who was here to deliver another lecture on “Reggio Emilia Approach of Imparting Education” at the university. The Dean went on to give the guests a brief history of the esteemed university, and also about the School of Computer, Information & Mathematical Sciences (SCIMS). He concluded after mentioning some of the highlights of Professor Fahlman’s inspiring career so far.
The presidential address was delivered, by the guest of honor, Professor Scott E. Fahlman, Emeritus Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. The professor delighted everyone, by starting his speech off, with a few sentences in Tamil. He spoke a little about his experiences in India. He was very thankful to the management, for making his stay a comfortable one. He also happened to tell a little story about Halloween. Professor Falhman said he was very much looking forward to the day.
The vote of thanks was given by Dr. Raja Prabhu (Director -International Affairs). He gave a little insight on the planning that had gone on, in order to make this symposium, a reality. He thanked all the Deans, HOD’s, and all of the distinguished faculty members, for their support & co-ordination.
Prof Scott’s Key note lecture on Introduction to AI:
Professor Fahlman began his keynote lecture, by speaking about how AI is the trending topic everywhere, and how a lot of faculty from universities were being poached by companies for research purposes, since there was only a limited number of people who were capable of working with AI. He revealed that a lot of companies in the US, like Google, IBM, Uber, etc., were all investing in AI, for their growth. After this, he spoke about a few success stories on early AI, such as the first automated vehicle – “Nav Lab” in 1986. He confessed that the “Handle” robot, designed in 2017, by Boston Dynamics, was his favourite robot. He then spoke about, how in the early stages, people tried to solve AI backwards. He said that AI struggled, when it came to things that humans do with ease, but yet, it solved things which were extremely hard for humans to do.
The Professor explained why Deep Learning had suddenly become such a phenomenon. A key discovery made, in this respect, was that of the GPU: which were generally used for gaming, were also found to be deeply useful in this field due to its greater computing power and duly got far reaching results. He highlighted that everyday human skills was a concept that was yet to be grasped fully by the AI. Professor Fahlman said that there existed 4 splits in the AI community. He gave his view, on how we needed to focus on big steps in the development of AI, rather than just incremental steps, given that they were towards the right direction.
Professor Fahlman said that big data was not the only thing that the AI researchers needed, but that, actual “knowledge” gathered from the data, was more important than the data itself. He said that people’s views on how AI could be a threat to humanity, were opinions largely based out of movies, and how it was not true. He justified his statement
