NVIDIA Pockets ARM for $40 Billion Unveiling the Biggest Chip Company M&A
On September 13th, NVIDIA announced the acquisition of UK-based semiconductor startup ARM for US$40 billion, unveiling the largest acquisition dealContinue Reading
Category: US & Canada
Ex-Uber AI Chief Scientist Zoubin Ghahramani Joins Google Brain Leadership Team
Former Uber Chief Scientist and VP for AI Zoubin Ghahramani has joined Google Research as part of the Google Brain team leadership.
EU and Canada Ministerial Meeting Reveals New AI Schemes for Global COVID-19 Recovery
The EU and Canada are collaborating to explore how to explicitly leverage artificial intelligence to help the international community respond to, and recover from, COVID-19.
Nvidia Launches GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs: ‘a Giant Step Into the Future’
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang today unveiled the company’s new GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs.
Trump Slashes Research Funding but Raises the US Federal AI Budget by 34 Percent
Trump announced the 2021 fiscal year budget proposal on Monday, further flashing the budget for federally funded research projects, whereas research budgets of major scientific institutions have experienced double-digit cuts.
Elon Musk Seeks AI Talents for Video Data Processing Supercomputer “Dojo”
On August 15th, Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla is recruiting AI or chip talents for a neural network training computer project named “Dojo”.
Trump Escalates His China Tech Ban from Tiktok to WeChat
US President Donald Trump released two executive orders to ban the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
Google’s Head of Business EMEA joins French startup Outsight to make it a leader in Spatial Intelligence
Google’s Head of AI & IoT Strategic Business Development EMEA, has been appointed Chief Business Officer of Outsight.
Chinese AI Company Xiao-i Sues Apple Siri for US$1.4 Billion
Chinese AI company Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology filed a US$1.4 billion patent infringement lawsuit against Apple.
MLPerf Training v0.7 Results Released: Google & NVIDIA Lead the Race
The industry-standard MLPerf benchmark today released the results of the third round of its ongoing ML Training Systems competition.
New York State Suspends AI Facial Recognition in Schools
New York will suspend implementation of AI facial recognition technology in schools for two years on Wednesday.
U of Florida Receives Us $50 Million From Nvidia to Build a 700-Petaflops AI Supercomputer
The University of Florida (UF) and Nvidia University announced on Tuesday the plan to build the world’s fastest AI supercomputer in academia, providing 700 petaflops of AI performance.
Nvidia May Be Interested in Acquiring ARM from Softbank, Apple Declined the Offer to Bid
According to Bloomberg, Nvidia is eyeing the possibility of acquiring Arm, the chip design subsidiary of Japan’s Softbank Group.
Amazon Backed Self-Driving Car Company Aurora to Test Fleet in Texas
According to the Verge, Amazon funded self-driving company Aurora will test a small vehicle fleet at the highways near Dallas-Fort Worth area in the next few weeks.
Top US AI Research Institutes and Tech Companies Support National AI Research Cloud
Leading US universities engaged in AI research have joined tech giants in backing legislation aimed at establishing a roadmap for the creation of a national AI research cloud.
Yann LeCun Quits Twitter Amid Acrimonious Exchanges on AI Bias
Turing Award Winner and Facebook Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun has announced his exit from Twitter after getting involved in a long and often acrimonious dispute regarding racial biases in AI.
WWDC 2020 | Apple Will Replace Intel CPU With Its Own ‘Apple Silicon’ Chips
Apple CEO Tim Cook made the announcement today during his keynote speech opening the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2020).
Toronto Machine Learning Society Presents MLOps: Production & Engineering 2020
Toronto Machine Learning Society (TMLS) hosts MLOps, Production & Engineering 2020 through an interactive conference to enable attendees the opportunity to virtually engage with speakers and establish a stronger network within the AI community.
Alibaba Launches Intelligent Search Business Department on Quark as Chinese Tech Giants Compete in the Search Space
Alibaba today announced the establishment of an Intelligent Search Business Department under the Alibaba Innovation Business Group.
Bengio-Backed Startup Korbit Introduces STEM Intelligent Tutoring System
Canadian education technology startup Korbit Technologies has introduced a personalized AI-powered learning experience that it says can help all students learn faster and better in a cost-effective way.
Former Microsoft AI Head Harry Shum Joins Intelligent Local News Startup News Break as Chairman
Former Microsoft executive vice president of Artificial Intelligence and Research Harry Shum (Shen Xiangyang) has been appointed chairman of the board of the Silicon Valley startup News Break.
Microsoft Build 2020 | World Top-5 Supercomputer With OpenAI, Microsoft Turing Models, Responsible ML Capabilities in AI Systems
The 48-hour digital event kicked off yesterday, and the company wasted no time making impactful announcements that included a new supercomputer, a family of large AI models, and a Responsible ML on Microsoft Azure initiative.
Google’s Sidewalk Labs Walks Away from Toronto Smart City Project
Google affiliated company Sidewalk Labs announced today that it is no longer pursuing the development of Toronto’s Quayside smart city project.
Yoshua Bengio Elected Royal Society Fellow
The Royal Society announced that Turing Award winner and director of MILA Yoshua Bengio has been elected as one of its new Fellows and Foreign Members.
USA CDC Recruiting Its First Chief Data Officer
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is looking for a Chief Data Officer.
Fei-Fei Li Proposes AI-Assisted Elder Care Solution at Stanford-Hosted Virtual Conference on COVID‑19 and AI
Fei-Fei Li, Stanford computer science professor and co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute (HAI), shared her thoughts on possible AI technologies that could help care for the seniors during the coronavirus pandemic
Women in AI | Chelsea Finn: ‘I Certainly Feel Like a Minority’
As part of the Women in AI special project, Synced spoke with Chelsea Finn, an assistant professor in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.
White House & Partners Launch COVID-19 AI Open Research Dataset Challenge on Kaggle
The White House on Monday joined a number of research groups to announce the release of the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) of scholarly literature about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and the Coronavirus group.
Former Microsoft AI Head Harry Shum Returns to Academia, Takes New Position With Tsinghua University
Shum will speak at China’s Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he will formally assume a Dual-Professorship position with the prestigious school’s Institute for Advanced Study.
Intel AI GM Naveen Rao Leaves After Habana Chosen Over Nervana
Naveen G. Rao, corporate vice president and general manager of the Artificial Intelligence Platforms Group at Intel, is stepping down.
‘AI in Action’ | Toronto Hosts AI Squared Forum 2019
On September 22 about 300 artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning enthusiasts gathered at the University of Toronto Bahen Centre for Information Technology for the AI Squared Forum 2019.
Masters Will Share Insights at First Toronto Kaggle Days Meetup
Synced would like to invite Toronto AI and data science students and researchers to join representatives of the world’s largest data science community for an evening of networking, discussions, and refreshments!
Vancouver Named NeurIPS 2019 & 2020 Host as Visa Issues Continue to Plague the AI Conference
The 2018 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) is in full swing in Montréal. According to a booklet distributed to attendees, both NeurIPS 2019 and 2020 will take place in Vancouver, making Canada the host country three years in a row. NIPS/NeurIPS has already been held in Montreal and Vancouver a combined 13 times since the world’s leading AI conference left its Denver base in 2001.
RE•WORK Deep Learning Summit in Toronto
RE•WORK organized the second Canadian edition of its RE•WORK Global DL Summit Series in Toronto on October 25 – 26. The event attracted over 600 attendees from more than 20 countries who joined conversations with leading AI and Deep Learning experts.
Nvidia Opens AI Research Lab In Toronto
Chip giant Nvidia today announced the opening of its new AI research centre in Toronto.
Nvidia Director of AI Sanja Fidler will lead the AI Research Lab. The University of Toronto Assistant Professor previously worked at the Toyota Technological Institute in Chicago as a research assistant professor.
Synchronized SGD Outdated? Yoshua Bengio on Hardware-Friendly DL
DeepMind’s 2018 AlphaGo Zero requires 300,000 times more computing power than AlexNet did in 2013. With larger-than-ever datasets and demandingContinue Reading
AI-Powered Hockey Analytics: A Game Changer
When the NBA’s Golden State Warriors decided to favour three-pointers over two-point shots in 2016, the winning strategy sent a shockwave through professional basketball. This was a “data-driven decision” based on higher score probability, explains Alex Martynov.
Canada’s Big Push on AI
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently joined the Canadian machine learning community to celebrate the country’s burgeoning AI ecosystem at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab (CDL).
Vector Adds Brains
Toronto’s Vector Institute announced today that it is adding 10 new faculty members, effectively doubling its size.
Building AI Superclusters in Canada
Canada is determined to build AI superclusters in Toronto-Waterloo, Montréal, and Edmonton.