AI Technology & Industry Review
AI highlights.
On April Fool’s Day in 2016, Google secretly uploaded a video of an autonomous bicycle roaming through the busy streets. Two days after the post went viral, Google clarified that it was actually the result of superb video editing. Five years later, Zhi Hui Jun, a vlogger from Beijing with more than 800,000 fans, spent four months (mainly on weekends) making the joke into a reality.
To meet the goal of carbon neutrality, Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture and conglomerate Toyota announced the plan to build a hydrogen-powered smart city on June 4. A dozen of companies including Asahi Group, Aeon, and Isuzu Motors is to participate in the project as of the announcement date.
On June 3, the White House and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department announced a new ban signed by the Biden administration restricting American investment in 59 Chinese companies, including companies such as Huawei, Hikvision, and SMIC.
Google says it will allow global advertisers offering cryptocurrency exchange and wallet products and services to market on its platform including search engine and Youtube, according to announcement on June 2.
On May 31, in Wuhan East Lake National Comprehensive Science Center， Huawei’s Wuhan Artificial Intelligence Computing Center was completed and putContinue Reading
Didi Autonomous Driving is to complete a USD 300 million new round of financing, with USD 200 million from the Guangzhou Automobile Group and its capital investment arm.
According to Nikkei reports, the Japanese government will provide half of the funds for TSMC’s relocation research facility in the Ibaraki Prefecture, which is north of Tokyo, and it is expected that R&D will be officially launched in 2022.
According to media reports on May 31, Shenzhen is building its tallest smart parking lot, which is expected to beContinue Reading
On May 30, media reported that the South Korean regulatory agency Fair Trade Commission has approved SK Hynix’s USD 9 billion acquisition of Intel’s NAND flash memory and SSD businesses.
On May 27th, SberAutoTech, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned banking company PJSC Sberbank, unveiled a self-driving taxi “Flip” developed byContinue Reading
The US government is advancing the “Artemis” moon landing plan in 2024, using a new type of autonomous rover, or Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), to explore places that it has never set foot in before.
On May 24, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 announced exclusively investment of USD 175 million in Riiid, a South Korean AI tutor company.
South Korea’s largest telecommunications company will join hand with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) to establish a AI research institute.
On May 28, Reuters quoted sources saying that BMW, Daimler and Ford have set up facilities in China to store data generated by cars locally.
The magnetic fusion energy reactor Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), known as the “artificial sun”, at the Hefei Institute of Material Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, set a new world record.
On May 26, OpenAI unveiled a new $100 million startup fund called the “OpenAI Startup Fund”, focusing on early-stage startupsContinue Reading
On May 25, Tesla announced that it will abandon LiDARs and roll out camera-only Autopilot assisted driving system called “Tesla Vision” in its North American Model 3 and Model Y vehicles starting in June.
On May 21, leading IoT cloud platform Tuya Smart hosted a panel to discuss resilience and innovation for the IoT industry in North America during COVID-19 outbreak.
Industry report unveiled that Waymo, the self-driving arm of Google, is seeking a USD 4 billion investment from external investors to fuel its autonomous vehicle business.
On May 20, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance and owner of TikTok since 2012, issued an internal letter to all employees announcing his resignation as CEO.
According to reports on May 17, Volkswagen said it will suspend production at its Chattanooga plant for two weeks beginning on June 7.
On May 11, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) unveiled the six pilot cities for smart city infrastructure and smart vehicle networks, including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Changsha and Wuxi.
On May 13, autonomous vehicle startup Pony.ai announced the expansion of its Robotaxi service in Beijing.
On May 13th, South Korea announced an ambitious plan to invest USD 451 billion into the country’s semiconductor industry over the next nine years.
Waymo, the self-driving subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, confirmed today that company chief financial officer Ger Dwyer is leaving, accompanied by Adam Frost, head of automotive partnerships and corporate development.
On April 21, the European Commission proposed its first comprehensive legal framework on AI, in effort to “address the risks of AI and position Europe to play a leading role globally”.
On April 19, Google Cloud and Siemens announced new cooperation to optimize factory processes and improve productivity on the shop floor. Siemens intends to integrate Google Cloud’s leading data cloud and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) technologies with its factory automation solutions.
According to Chinese media report on April 19, there have been at least 21 AI chips investments involving 17 companies since the beginning of 2021, totaling approx. RMB 20 billion (USD 3.1 billion).
On April 15, self-driving truck company TuSimple raised USD 1.35 billion with its NASDAQ IPO, with company valuation hitting USD 8.5 billion at high point.
On April 12, Microsoft Corp announced the acquisition of Nuance for USD 19.7 billion, which is the largest acquisition after its LinkedIn deal for USD 26 billion in 2016.
On April 12, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA announced that they are creating what is expected to be the world’s most powerful AI-capable supercomputer.
According to the Shenzhen Robotics Industry Development White Paper released on April 9, the total output value of Shenzhen’s robotics industry was RMB 143.4 billion (USD 22 billion approx.)
On April 8, Chinese robotics startup CloudMinds finished series B+ round of funding with RMB 1 Billion (approx. USD 150 million) investment led by SOEs Shanghai Urban Construction Investment and Shanghai Guosheng Group.
On April 7, media reports show that China’s top-tier electric vehicle manufacturer, XPeng or Xiaopeng Motors, has commenced R&D for owned self-driving chips.
Xiaomi, the Chinese electronics giant with a valuation over RMB 100 billion, has announced its entrance into the electric cars market on March 30th.
A team from Facebook and Google has proposed LazyTensor — a technique for targeting domain-specific compilers without sacrificing define-by-run ergonomics.
Scania, the Swedish manufacturer of heavy lorries, trucks and buses, is testing L4 level self-driving trucks on the E4 motorway between Södertälje and Jönköping, in collaboration with San Diego-based company TuSimple.
On February 25, the Shanghai Government announced its Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Development of the New Energy Automobile Industry (2021-2025).
According to multiple investment institutions, the global chip shortage shows no signs of alleviation, despite of increasing demand in 2021.
Farmers Edge Inc, an AI startup to help growers increase crop yields, plans to go public on Canada’s largest Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FDGE”.