It’s been a month of event cancellations due to COVID-19. NVIDIA has pulled the plug on the annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose and taking the show online. Just how much of the event will be held online is yet to be known but the definite go ahead is the keynote address by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
Category: Artificial intelligence
Arm launches AI chip for IoT devices

Source: ArmArm has launched the Cortex-M55, an artificial intelligence (AI) processor based on the Armv8.1-M architecture with Arm Helium vector processing technology for significantly enhanced, energy-efficient digital signal processing and machine learning (ML).
IBM selects new Chief
IBM has chosen Arvind Krishna to be its new Chief Executive Officer from April 6. The current Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software will take over the reign from Virginia Rometty, who will remain as Executive Chairman of the Board and serve until her retirement at the end of the year.
Fuji Xerox to become Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp
Fuji Xerox is changing its corporate name to Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp on April 1, 2021. All Fuji Xerox affiliates and sales companies in and outside Japan will also change their names respectively on that date but their new names will be announced later.
China to lead in global robotics systems and drones spending in 2020
China will lead in drones and robotics systems (US$46.9 billion) in 2020, according to IDC. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China) (APeJC) will be the second largest region with US$25.1 billion in spending, followed by the US (US$17.5 billion) and Western Europe (US$14.4 billion).
Certis harnesses technologies, operationalises AI

Chua: Combining operations and technologyOperations and technology must work hand in hand in order for organisations to gain better leverage and improve services.
Bespoke launches AI chatbot for Ginza subway line
Nearly one million riders on the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line will now be able to tap on the capabilities of Bebot, an AI chatbot.They will be able to access naviation and useful train information all along the line using the app
AI Innovation Day to focus on IVA
From enhancing public safety to improving customer experience, intelligent video analytics (IVA) is shaping the way videos are used for more informed decision-making. The technology is the focus of AI Innovation Day, which will be held at Kent Ridge Guild House in Singapore on December 4.
Huawei opens 5G-powered AI lab in Singapore
Singapore will have 100 more artificial intelligence (AI) architects and 1,000 more AI developers over the next three years — thanks to the newly-launched Huawei AI lab.
Singapore unveils National AI Strategy
Singapore has upped its stake in artificial intelligence (AI) with the unveiling of a National AI Strategy.
Fintech startup ABC Technology makes Singapore its international HQ
Singapore’s vibrant fintech community has scored another first with Beijing-headquartered strtup ABC Technology making Singapore its international base.
NVIDIA unveils Jetson Xavier NX for AI supercomputing at the edge
NVIDIA has introduced the Jetson Xavier NX, which it dubbed as “the world’s smallest, most powerful AI supercomputer for robotic and embedded computing devices at the edge”.
Computer and machine vision market to hit US$26b in 2024
Expanding range of applications and more powerful hardware are expected to drive growth in the computer vision and machine vision market in the next five years, according to BCC Research.
AI certification initiative launched in Singapore
AI Singapore (AISG) has announced the AISG AI Certification, a structure learning pathway to enable Singaporeans to reskill, upskill and deep skill in artifical intelligence (AI).
NVIDIA touts 2 new Shield models
NVIDIA has rolled out the Shield TV and Shield TV Pro media streamers to deliver new visual and sound experiences to the gogglebox.
Infineon inks 3 MOUs to accelerate innovations in Singapore

SM Tharman: Keep pushing the frontiers of innovationInventing the future together was the theme of this year’s OktoberTech Asia Pacific conference in Singapore organised by Infineon Technologies. And the semiconductor giant certainly walks its talk. At the opening of the event, it inked three memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to help accelerate innovations in Singapore.
Infineon Co-Innovation Space takes flight as startups depart with commercially-ready solutions
A year after its launch, the Infineon Co-Innovation Space has borne fruit with two of its inaugural batch of startups coming up with their commercially-ready solutions built with Infineon’s microelectronics.
NVIDIA announces EGX edge supercomputing platform for AI, IoT and 5G
NVIDIA has announced the NVIDIA EGX Edge Supercomputing Platform which lets organisations deliver next-generation AI, IoT and 5G-based services at scale and with low latency. Along with annoucing this at his keynote address at the opening of Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles, NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang declared that we have entered a new era, where billions of always-on IoT sensors will be connected by 5G and processed by AI.
Singapore Polytechnic first to offer AI diploma course
It’s a case of preparing them early as Singapore Polytechnic (SP) became the first polytechnic in the country to offer a full-time diploma in applied artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics from April next year.
Dyson switches from electric car to battery
High-end vacuum maker Dyson has shelved plans to build an electric car. Instead, the British technology company will concentrate on making a revolutionary battery.
India’s Stellapps Technologies wins Rabobank’s SustainableAg Asia Challenge

Umesh Parjapat of Stellapps Technologies (second from left) with (from left) Albert Boogard of Rabo Foundation, Diane Boogard of Rabobank Asia and Harjan Kuiper of Rabobank Singapore.Stellapps Technologies put on a stellar presentation to win over the judges and take home the top prize of US$10,000 at Rabobank’s SustainableAg Asia Challenge. Fending off 13 other shortlisted competitors from China, India, Indonesia, and Singapore in a field of 138, it impressed with its SmartMoo internet of things (IoT) platform, which improves yield per animal, traceability and quality of milk in emerging countries.
NVIDIA RTX takes live TV up another notch
While ray tracing has been adopted to make gaming more real, the technology took live broadcasting to another level at the opening of The League of Legends Pro League regional finals in Shanghai. The live show host interacted with an augmented reality gaming character in a real-time mixed reality broadcast.
Singapore: Most ready for AI

As a city, Singapore is the world’s most ready for the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, according to research firm Oliver Wyman Forum. London, New York, San Francisco, and Paris made up the rest of the top five with Sydney slotting in at 10th.
AWS avails NVIDIA T4-powered Amazon EC2 G4 instances
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced general availability of G4 instances, a new NVIDIA T4 GPU-powered Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance designed to help accelerate machine learning inference and graphics-intensive workloads.
New Ambi Climate feature balances multiple users’ needs to keep everyone cool and cosy
Keeping cool in an air-conditioned room can raise the temperature if multiple users cannot agree on the correct setting. Hong Kong-based IoT startup Ambi Labs has come up with a new feature for its Ambi Climate controller that aims to keep everyone cool and cosy.
The future of database is in the cloud

Unsurprisingly, a Gartner report is predicting that three quarters of all databases will reside in the cloud by 2022. Only five percent of migration will remain on premises.
Robots to replace 20m jobs by 2030
Nearly one in 10 jobs will be replaced by robots by 2030, according to a paper released by Oxford Economics. Entitled How Robots Change the World, it highlights that up to 8.5% of the global manufacturing workforce could be displaced by industrial robots just 11 years down the road.
Malaysian teams top first Infineon-LG Hackathon

Malaysia scored big at the first Infineon LG </> Make Hackathon on breakthrough Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in Singapore on June 17.
NVIDIA empowers Arm with AI and HPC software
Giving customers choices and enabling innovation in the high performance computing (HPC) space are the key reasons why NVIDIA is providing support for Arm CPUs.
Taiwan’s fastest supercomputer goes online

Taiwan’s new and fastest supercomputer, Taiwania 2 is also the world’s 20th fastest and 10th most energy efficient. Made in Taiwan, it will be used by the academic and research communities at the Taiwan Computing Cloud.
NVIDIA strikes back at Intel
Take that, Intel! GPU giant NVIDIA has fired back at Intel, which reported that its Xeon Scalable processors outperforms NVIDIA GPU on ResNet-50 deep learning Inference.
NVIDIA unveils US$99 Jetson Nano
NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang made a slew of announcements during his near three-hour keynote address at the GPU Technology Conference last week. But among the date centre and server offerings, partnerships with leading brands and a new development in autonomous driving, one that doesn’t seem as loud and prominent could prove to be the spark to trigger a robotics tsunami.
NTU and Volvo launch world’s first full size, autonomous electric bus
Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Volvo Buses have launched the world’s first full size, autonomous electric bus. The single-deck 12-metre long Volvo electric bus has a capacity of 80 passengers.Data scientists to get certification
Data scientist is one of the hottest jobs in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) where big data is king. IBM and The Open Group have come together to provide a certification programme for this highly-sought after job.
Singapore unveils AI governance framework

Singapore has released Asia’s first model artificial intelligence (AI) governance framework to provide detailed and readily implementable guidance to private sector organisations deploying AI solutions.
The age of AI in radiology is here

Speaking with a passion of an artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare evangelist, Kimberly Powell declared that the age of AI in radiology is here. And she has earned the right to say that because she has been championing this since she joined NVIDIA 11 years ago.
SenseTime sets up autonomous driving site in Japan
Leading China-based AI company SenseTime has unveiled an autonomous driving park in Joso, Japan. The testing course will be used to develop autonomous driving technology and conduct road tests of autonomous vehicles.
China: Quick adopter, widespread use of technology
By Edward Lim
In the early 2000s, I visited Beijing for the first time and was amazed to see a taxi using a global positioning system (GPS) to get me to my destination. To put things in perspective, this was before the arrival of smartphones and GPS wasn’t even used in Singapore.
NVIDIA unleashes powerful ‘T-Rex’ GPU

It’s no dinosaur but the newly-announced NVIDIA Titan RTX, dubbed T-Rex, is certainly very powerful — to the tune of 130 teraflops of deep learning performance and 11 GigaRays of ray-tracing performance.
Amazon takes on big guns in machine learning
A new player has entered the machine learning arena. While big players such as Google, Intel and NVIDIA have been slugging it out, Amazon has thrown its hat into the ring with its newly-launched Inferentia chip.
Ecozen impresses at inaugural Rabobank Food Loss Challenge

Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are not usually associated with food and agriculture but five startups have shown that such technologies can play a major role in minimising food loss. Some 1.3 billion tonnes of food are lost worldwide each year.
NVIDIA GPUs power a quarter of Top 500 supercomputers

The world’s top two supercomputers — – the US Department of Energy’s Summit, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sierra, at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. — pack a combined total of more than 40,000 NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs, according to the latest of the Top 500 list released in conjunction with SC18.
Taiwan hospital deploys NVIDIA DGX-2 for next-generation medical services
Taiwan’s Chinese Medical University Hospital (CMUH) has become the first healthcare provider in Asia to deploy and operate the NVIDIA DGX-2 AI supercomputer.
Huawei ups the ante on AI
Huawei has upped the ante with an ambitious US$140 million investment in developing one million artificial intelligence (AI) talents in three years. Under its AI Developer Enablement Programme, the China telecoms giant will work with universities and research institutions as well as partners and developers to build an ecosystem with AI resources, platforms, courses, and joint solutions to better support AI development.
Facebook to give SEA startups a leg up
Social media giant Facebook is partnering with Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore to give Southeast Asia startups a head start in developing data-driven technologies.
Googles turns 20
By Edward Lim
It may have seemed like forever but Google just celebrated its 20th anniversary today. It’s not even an adult yet by human age but the search giant has grown massively over the past two decades.
NVIDIA GPU Cloud supports Microsoft Azure
NVIDIA and Microsoft have announced that Microsoft Azure is now supported on the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) platform.
China wins battle for AI investments
A battle of sorts is taking place in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). It has been widely reported that China is ramping up its focus on the technology that is expected to transform businesses and industries. Numbers from ABI Research point to a swing in favour of China.
NVIDIA AI Conference keynotes: Transforming industries, creating AI infrastructure
The first NVIDIA AI Conference in Sydney on September 4 will kick off with two keynote addresses. Marc Hamilton, Vice President of Solutions Architecture and Engineering, NVIDIA, will talk about Transforming Industries With AI. Jason Humphrey (right), Head of Retail Risk, ANZ Bank, will then share on Creating the Infrastructure to Undertake Deep Learning.
NetApp rolls out NVIDIA-powered NetApp ONTAP AI architecture
NetApp has introduced NetApp ONTAP AI proven architecture to simplify, accelerate and scale the data pipeline across edge, core and cloud for deep learning deployments and to help customers achieve real business impact with AI.
Making autonomous vehicles more perceptive

Perceptive Automata, a startup which had its beginnings in Harvard University, is leveraging deep intelligence to give human intuition into autonomous vehicles. The technology will be able to observe body language of pedestrians and react accordingly to enable safer self-driving.
Google Maps motorcycle mode now available in Singapore
Google Maps has enabled its motorcycle mode feature for Singapore and elsewhere in the region in due time. Originally launched in India in December 2017, the app will give motorcyclists routes that are more suitable for two-wheelers.
NVIDIA brings premier AI conference to Sydney
A global line-up of artificial intelligence (AI) experts will be heading to Sydney to speak at the NVIDIA AI Conference. Researchers and developers will also get training from the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI) during the event.
Bosch and Daimler pick NVIDIA Drive Pegasus for robotaxis
Daimler and Bosch have chosen NVIDIA Drive Pegasus AI supercomputer to power their robotaxis, which are expected to start testing in Silicon Valley next year.
100m smart speakers by end of 2018

Smart speakers are picking up steam with the installed base expected to hit 100 million by the end of this year, according to Canalys. That’s 2.5 times the size of end 2017.
Suning Tesco opens first UAV logistics route in Wuhan
China e-commerce firm Suning Tesco has opened the first pilot route for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) logistics and transportation in Wuhan, China. Its logistics arm Suning Logistics and Ewatt Aerospace jointly developed two UAVs for this purpose.
Alibaba leverages AI for copywriting

Copywriters, beware! A new tool dubbed “The AI copywriter” by Alimama can generate an astounding 20,000 lines of copy in a second. Alimama is the digital marketing arm of China e-commerce giant Alibaba.
SenseTime makes triple signing in Singapore

China artificial intelligence (AI) company SenseTime has inked memoranda of understanding (MOU) with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National Supercomputing Centre of Singapore (NSCC) and Singtel.
1Coach wearable: More than a tracker, it’s a run advisor!
SensFusion has launched 1Coach, a wearable running sensor that not only tracks but also offers training advice for improving runs.
ELSA Speak helps in English pronunciation
Artificial intelligence (AI) startup ELSA is giving non-native English speakers help with ELSA Speak, an app that teaches how to pronounce English words correctly.
