DeepMind Partnered With DNDi To Cure Neglected Diseases

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June 28, 2021

DeepMind recently announced its partnership with the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative (DNDi) to use artificial intelligence for treating neglected diseases.

In 2020, DeepMind unveiled its new artificial intelligence platform, AlphaFold, which was capable of mapping protein structures accurately way faster than scientists could do.

Alphabet-owned research company used the platform to map out a number of the Sars-CoV-2 virus’ protein structures predictions that were later confirmed to be accurate after analysis.

Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative (DNDi) is a non-profit pharmaceutical enterprise that has been attempting to tackle some of the most fatal diseases in the developing world for 18 years. DNDi is a tweet mentioned about the collaboration, which would fast-track their efforts to find cures to widely neglected diseases like Chagas and leishmaniasis.

What if the most powerful #AI technology could help the most neglected patients? We are partnering with @DeepMind’s #AlphaFold project to fast-track our efforts to find safe & effective drugs for people with #Chagas and #leishmaniasis. @demishassabis 1/2 https://t.co/AESo7IZdNI
— Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (@DNDi) June 23, 2021

In the past, DNDi has already contributed to finding a cure for sleeping sickness and has replaced a drug called melarsoprol with fexinidazole as a new standard treatment for the disease.

A research conducted at the University of Washington by scientists of DNDi found a molecule that can bind to a protein on Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas disease-causing parasite) and kill it. Now, with the help of DeepMind’s AlphaFold platform, scientists can easily study and analyze the protein structure of the molecule to understand how the drug is prohibiting the parasite from functioning.

Ben Pery, a medicinal chemist and project leader at DNDi, said, “ This could allow us to crack Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis a lot quicker than it looked like we were going to be able to do a couple of years ago.” He also added that with AlphaFold’s technology of generating protein structures, it has become a lot easier for scientists to design multiple drug candidates to neutralize the effects of an infection.

Both companies aim to use AlphaFold to democratize the drug discovery process, which would enable scientists from nations that lack the necessary infrastructure to contribute to finding cures for fatal diseases.

New Map Created By Artificial Intelligence Reveals Hidden Links Between Milky Way And Andromeda Galaxies

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Dipayan Mitra

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June 28, 2021

New Map Created By Artificial Intelligence Reveals Hidden Links Between Milky Way And Andromeda Galaxies

A new cosmic map created by artificial intelligence shows hidden constructions connecting galaxies, which would help scientists predict a future collision between the Milkyway and Andromeda galaxies, which is our nearest neighbor.

An announcement from Pennsylvania Negate University mentioned that the map generated using machine learning would also help scientists to discover more about dark matter and its involvement in the creation of the universe.

Researchers said that the map charted the expected collision of the two galaxies in 4.5 billion years, including dark matter filaments that bridge the two galaxies that can affect the merger. Dark matter and dark energy account for roughly 80% of the matter in the universe, but the scientists poorly understand it.

Dark matter is invisible in wavelengths of light. Hence it can’t be seen with telescopes. But, scientists can trace the influence of dark matter’s gravity on large cosmic structures, such as galaxies.

New map created by AI reveals hidden links between Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies https://t.co/op1gNadVod pic.twitter.com/tJPk6yaLQw
— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) June 25, 2021

An associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics, Donghui Jeong, said, “Because dark matter dominates the dynamics of the universe, it basically determines our fate.” He further added that it is possible to generate a map for billions of years to predict what will happen in the local universe using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

It can also help to evolve a model back in time to understand the history of our cosmic neighborhood. The map also portrayed many new filaments that the researchers plan to study further, including those that connect the Milky Way to Andromeda.

The accuracy of the map is expected to increase after the launch of NASA’s $9.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which will gather data to help scientists see fainter and distant galaxies.

“Having a map of the cosmic web opens up a new chapter of cosmological study,” said Jeong. The map has enabled scientists to study the nature and distribution of dark matter across the universe better.

Dataiku Launches In AWS Marketplace Enabling Better Features

By

Manisha Kalagara

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June 28, 2021

Dataiku announced that it would be launching in the AWS marketplace, enabling the AWS customers to use Dataiku’s visual interface to build various AI and machine learning tasks. The users will be able to prepare data, data pipelines, and build and deploy machine learning models on the cloud.

Anyone who possesses an AWS account can leverage the leading AI and machine learning platform, Dataiku, for elastic cloud computing. The enterprise had made the usage more flexible for the ones starting in AI and machine learning by removing the barrier of contracts or legal issues.

“We believe that every company, no matter how large or small, can benefit from AI/ML products like ours; launching in AWS Marketplace only makes that easier,” said Florian Douetteau, CEO of Dataiku. “Now, more organizations will be able to leverage AI to automate key business processes, allowing customers to make smarter, faster decisions and deliver better customer experiences.”

Developers who use Dataiku through AWS will have coherent access to stored data on AWS and read and write an entry to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and managed SQL services. Users can take advantage of this entry to scale data pipelines and machine learning processes by grasping compute clusters like Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) through visual components or a coding language. Not only that, but the developer can have access to connect, transform, visualize and analyze datasets with Amazon Redshift with visual recipes or custom SQL code.

The elastic integration of Dataiku takes advantage of the cloud computing resources to enable automatic computing for the data preparation, model building, and model scoring jobs orchestrated on Dataiku. Customers can also easily access the AWS Machine Learning Services for the smooth inclusion of computer vision or text analytics into Dataiku projects.

ZzappMalaria Wins $5 million IBM Watson AI XPRISE

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Dipayan Mitra

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June 28, 2021

ZzappMalaria, a startup based in Israel, wins $5 million by bagging the 1st prize in IBM’s Watson AI XPRISE competition. ZzappMalaria also won the People’s Choice Award as the “Most Inspiring Team.”.

The startup aims to eliminate malaria with artificial intelligence-powered solutions. The enterprise was selected as one of three finalists for the prize earlier this year, competing amongst ten semi-finalists following presentations of their solutions to a panel of judges at an event held at TED headquarters in New York City in 2020.

On Wednesday, IBM, in an event in Los Angeles, declared the results of the competition where ZzappMalaria captured the first spot, followed by Alfred Health and Marinus Analytics, which won $1 Million and $500,000, respectively.

Arnon Houri, founder and CEO of ZzappMalaria, said, “The Zapp team is very grateful to Xprize and IBM Watson for recognizing the importance of the fight against malaria.” He further mentioned that they aim to utilize the funds to ramp up the process of eliminating malaria in sub-Saharan Africa using artificial intelligence.

The startup is currently operating in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zanzibar with a few local partners, including NGOs and government organizations. The company also hinted that they would soon start their operations in India which hosts 3% of the world’s malaria infections.

CEO of XPRISE, Anousheh Ansari, said, “After five years of hard work and dedication, XPRIZE is excited to announce Zzapp Malaria as the grand prize winner of IBM Watson AI XPRIZE.” ZzappMalaria was founded in 2016 by Armor Hourin to eradicate malaria with its self-developed artificial intelligence software.

Their map-based platform predicts stagnant water bodies caused due to rain and sends the information to healthcare workers to treat the area with pesticides. The application is capable of functioning in low-connectivity areas and works on low-end smartphones as well.

Jio Collaborates With Google Cloud To Enable 5G Technology

By

Manisha Kalagara

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June 28, 2021

Jio announces a long-term strategic relationship with Google cloud to enable enterprises with 5G technology. Google Cloud’s scalable infrastructure will be utilized by Reliance to achieve better growth, operational efficiency, and also to modernize their customers/enterprises.

For a faster network, Google Cloud will be providing a fully automated lifecycle management with a complete end-to-end cloud offering. Google’s Edge Cloud infrastructure will provide a highly scalable, open, and high-performing platform to assist Jio subscribers in using 5G services. Jio and Google Cloud will also work together to bring a portfolio of 5G edge computing solutions to aid enterprises in addressing real business provocations.

Jio’s 5G network and Google cloud’s transformations in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, analytics, and other cloud-native technologies will be used to explore the new service in the fields of healthcare, gaming, education, and video entertainment.

Cloud solutions are the key area for collaboration with Google. Jio will be using Google Cloud’s technologies to power 5G solutions and internal growth of Reliance businesses such as JioMart, JioSaavn, JioHealth, and Reliance Retail.

“We are delighted to announce a new 5G partnership with Reliance Jio to help Indian consumers connect to a faster and better internet and support businesses in their digital transformation and help Jio build new services in sectors like health, education, and more” said Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google. He also added that as a part of the collaboration, Reliance will be shifting its core retail businesses on to Google Cloud infrastructure, which will enable Reliance scale up and improve customer experience.

Google Cloud’s telco-specific capabilities for performance, security, and resilience and its emerging innovation will aid Jio in meeting the consumer demand with 5G service, henceforth strengthening Jio’s position as a service provider and as multi-division enterprise in the country.

LinkedIn’s Job-Matching Artificial Intelligence Was Biased

By

Dipayan Mitra

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June 27, 2021

Linkedin's artificial intelligence was biased

The use of artificial intelligence in recruitment is quickly gaining popularity as more companies absorb this technology. However, most of the companies rely on third-party service providers like LinkedIn and Monster to meet their hiring needs, where they are able to collect and screen resumes of millions of potential employees.

These platforms also utilize artificial intelligence to cater their services to several organizations. Most of the matching engines are optimized to create job applications. Recommendations of these engines are based on three types of data: data assigned to users based on other people with similar skills, information directly provided by users to the platform, and behavioral data, like the frequency of users replying to messages or interacting with job openings.

LinkedIn excluded a person’s name, age, gender, and ethnicity from their algorithm as they might result in a bias in the automated system. But John Jersin, former vice president of product management at LinkedIn and his team, found that even so, the service’s algorithm can still detect the behavior patterns of groups with specific gender identities.

Jersin said, “For example, you might recommend more senior positions to one group of people than another group, even if they have the same level of qualifications.” He further added that those people would not be exposed to the same opportunities, which is a matter of concern.

As a solution, Jersin and his team have developed another artificial intelligence that generates more representative results. It is entirely a different algorithm designed to counter biased recommendations towards certain groups. The new artificial intelligence makes sure that the recommendation system includes even distribution of transgender users before referencing the matches planned by the original engine.

The CEO of CareerBuilder, Irina Novoseelski, said that she intends to use the data gathered by the service to train the workers so that they can eliminate bias in recruitment information.

Walmart Is Using Artificial Intelligence To Provide Better Grocery Deliveries

By

Dipayan Mitra

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June 27, 2021

Walmart is using artificial intelligence to help both customers and Personal Shoppers choose the best substitute for an out-of-stock item. In this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, food and grocery delivery apps experienced a rapid change in customer behavior, which led to a skyrocketing boost of their user base.

Walmart recently surpassed Amazon as the # 1 shopping app on both Google Play and the App Store. The decision on how to substitute is highly complicated and very subjective to each customer, as wrong choices can negatively impact customer satisfaction and increase costs.

Walmart’s artificial intelligence-powered platform takes into account numerous factors that are involved in decision making before showing substitute options to its customers, which would be extremely difficult and time consuming to do if performed manually.

The implementation of this technology into grocery delivery is not something new. Last year in May, Walmart reported how it used artificial intelligence technology to determine eligibility for its newly launched express delivery service in the United States.

Srini Venkatesan, Vice president of Walmart Global Tech, said, “The technology we developed uses deep learning artificial intelligence that can consider hundreds of variables – size, type, brand, price, aggregated buyer data, individual customer preferences, current inventory, and more in real time to select the best next available item.”

He further added that the customer is asked to approve the suggested item or to tell the platform that they don’t want it, as it is an important data which the company uses to refine its artificial intelligence platform to provide better suggestions.

Walmart officials said, “Following the deployment of this tech, customer acceptance of substitutions has increased to over 95%.” The company intends to further improve its platform by continuously learning from consumer feedback to ensure complete customer satisfaction.

Linux Foundation Implements A Safe Open Standards For AI Voice Assistants

By

Manisha Kalagara

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June 26, 2021

On Tuesday, the Linux Foundation announced an open-source association wholly dedicated to the advancing open standards that supports the promotion of AI-enabled voice assistance systems named open voice network.

The Linux Foundation aims to build a sustainable ecosystem along with open-source projects to speed up technological development and commercial adoptions. The open voice network’s role is to prioritize trust and interoperability in voice-based applications and support fostering AI-enabled voice assistance systems in the digital future.

The artificial intelligence-generated voice assistance systems are primarily based on automatic speech recognition, advanced dialog management, natural language processing, and machine learning. The open voice network has set a few guidelines on them to ensure the voice assistance’s security.

“Having an open network through Open Voice Network for education and global standards is the only way to keep pace with the rate of innovation and demand for influencer marketing,” said Rolf Schumann, the chief digital officer at Schwarz Gruppe(one of the founding members).

They have set three significant guidelines to ensure a secured voice assistance system: to research and recommend global standards that qualify the user choice, inclusivity, and trust. To identify and share conversational AI practices specific and inlined with industries that serve as the source of insight and value for voice assistance systems. And the last one, for the enterprises to work along with the existing industry associations on relevant regulatory and legislative issues.

Xactly Forecasting Wins 2021 Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough Award

By

Dipayan Mitra

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June 26, 2021

Xactly Forecasting Wins 2021 Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough Award

Xactly Forecasting recently announced that it was named a “Best Predictive Analytics Solution” in the fourth annual AI Breakthrough Awards program. The award show recognizes top enterprises and products in the global market and is organized every year by an industry-leading artificial intelligence organization, AI Breakthrough.

This year’s program had over 2,850 nominations from 17 different countries across the world. Xactly’s end-to-end artificial intelligence platform provides customers accurate and precise sales forecasting with the help of its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, coupled with its vast reserves of data gathered for over 16 years.

The platform also enables the customers to access historical data, sentiment and buying patterns to better understand both upsell potential for existing customers and the likelihood of deals closing for new clients, improving revenue predictability.

Arnab Mishra, Chief Product Officer at Xactly, said, “To stay ahead in a competitive market and deliver on high growth targets, more enterprise organizations are optimizing their businesses and embracing intelligent revenue.”

He further added that sales technologies are imperative components of any high-performing company. In recent times, the uncertainty of the global economy has made sales forecasting a challenge for most of the industry leaders.

Xactly’s platform has helped such companies to predict and manage their revenue pipeline to ensure profitability accurately. The platform has also received the title of ‘2021 Product of the Year’ by Business Intelligence Group. Despite advancements in automation and the increasing pressure to succeed, enterprises fall short in forecasting and hitting their numbers as their revenue funnel is missing the ability to understand and store data.

James Johnson, Managing Director of AI Breakthrough, said, “Sellers’ time is valuable, and solutions like Xactly Forecasting that are built on advanced artificial intelligence to provide critical insights and save this precious time are certainly ‘breakthrough’ worthy.”

Volvo To Release Lidar-Based Electric SUV In 2022

By

Dipayan Mitra

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June 25, 2021

volvo to release lidar based electric suv

On Thursday, Volvo confirmed the release of an all-electric, lidar-based artificial intelligence-powered successor to the Volvo XC90 in 2022. Volvo’s upcoming flagship SUV will feature new sensors and computers, which would provide a more advanced driver-assistance technology.

A recent press release from Volvo said that the XC90 successor would get Luminar lidar and a higher-performance computer using the Nvidia Drive Orin chip as standard equipment. Volvo previously confirmed plans to integrate roof-mounted lidar sensors from Luminar, which the carmaker has been funding since 2018.

LIDAR is like a radar that uses light waves instead of radio waves to detect objects. This technology is considered to be an inevitable component of self-driving cars by many experts as the majority of the prototypes currently being tested are using similar equipment. However, leading self-driving cars makers like Tesla have shown interest in computer vision technology instead of LIDAR.

Volvo said that this new technology would be coupled with an in-house developed software named ‘Highway Pilot’ to enable customers to use the feature in selected geographical locations and conditions legalized by respective governments. The carmaker confirmed that the lidar sensor would be developed by Luminar along with an industry-leading gaming hardware producer, NVIDIA.

Henrik Green, Chief Technology Officer at Volvo, said, “Standardizing the lidar technology and the computing platform will provide our customers with a new level of safety in all the vehicles that are affected.”

He mentioned that the new hardware would also help improve Volvo’s standard safety features like automatic emergency braking and blindspot detection. The technology developed by Luminar and NVIDIA will enable Volvo’s cars to scrutinize the surroundings and aid them in making accurate decisions about its next move.

This feature has the capability to surpass a human driver’s skills to prevent accidents in a tricky, collision-like situation. The successor of XC90 will be based on Volvo’s new SPA2 architecture, replacing the Scalable Product Architecture platform that is being used in the current generation of XC90 and many other Volvo models.