Bits & Bytes
IBM takes Watson AI to AWS, Google, Azure.
- In an effort to broaden the distribution of its AI technology, IBM announced that it is making IBM Watson available across competing public cloud services such as AWS, Google, and Azure.
FAIR open-sources new ELF OpenGo data set, research, and insights.
- Facebook AI Research (FAIR’s) new features and research results include a completely retrained model of ELF OpenGo using reinforcement learning. The open-sourcing of these models provide an important benchmark for future research.
Google collaborates with DeepMind to announce PlaNet for reinforcement learning.
- The Deep Planning Network (PlaNet) agent learns a world model from image inputs and leverages it for planning. It’s able to solve a variety of image-based tasks with up to 5,000 percent the data efficiency.
Cogitai launches Continua, a cloud-based, self-learning AI platform for businesses.
- The SAAS platform for self-learning AI, Continua platform aims to turn any process, system, software bot, or real robot into a self-learning autonomous service.
IBM, SUNY Poly creating AI “hardware lab” in Albany.
- IBM has agreed to extend its presence at SUNY Poly’s Center for Semiconductor Research through 2023, with an option for another five-year agreement after that. IBM’s total spending under the deal will be $2 billion.
Google announces Live Transcribe for real-time continuous transcription.
- Live Transcribe captions conversations in real-time, with support for over 70 languages.
Unity announces forthcoming Obstacle Tower Challenge.
- The new AI challenge aims to test the vision, control, planning, and generalization abilities of intelligent agents in an end-to-end manner. It’s based on Obstacle Tower, a new research environment combining platform-style gameplay with puzzles and planning problems, spanning an endless number of floors that become progressively more difficult as an agent advances.
Dollars & Sense
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Peltarion, a Swedish startup announced that it has raised a $20M Series A funding
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Polly.ai, a Seattle, based company has raised a $7M Series A funding round
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TuSimple, a self-driving truck startup has raised $95M in a Series D funding round
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Apple has acquired AI startup called PullString that specializes in helping companies build conversational voice apps
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Sensory Inc. announced acquisition of Vocalize.ai, which provides benchmarking, accuracy assessments and bias evaluations for speech technologies and natural language interface
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Databricks, announced it has raised $250M in a Series E funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Coatue Management, Microsoft
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Aire, a London based credit scoring system company, raised $11M in Series B funding
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KenSci has raised $22M to fuel the growth of its ML and AI-powered technology
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New Relic, Inc., provider of real-time insights for software-driven businesses, announced that it has acquired SignifAI
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Avalara, Inc. announced it has acquired AI technology and expertise from Indix
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Facebook has acquired visual shopping and AI startup GrokStyle
