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Intel today unveiled new hardware and software targeting the artificial intelligence (AI) market, which has emerged as a focus of investment for the largest data center operators. The chipmaker introduced an FPGA accelerator that offers more horsepower for companies developing new AI-powered services.

The Intel Deep Learning Inference Accelerator (DLIA) combines traditional Intel CPUs with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), semiconductors that can be reprogrammed to perform specialized computing tasks. FPGAs allow users to tailor compute power to specific workloads or applications.

The DLIA is the first hardware product emerging from Intel’s $16 billion acquisition of Altera last year. It was introduced at SC16 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the annual showcase for high performance computing hardware. Intel is also rolling out a beefier model of its flagship Xeon processor, and touting its Xeon Phi line of chips optimized for parallelized workloads.

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Computer chips in development at the University of Wisconsin–Madison could make future computers more efficient and powerful by combining tasks usually kept separate by design.

Jing Li, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW–Madison, is creating computer chips that can be configured to perform complex calculations and store massive amounts of information within the same integrated unit — and communicate efficiently with other chips. She calls them “liquid silicon.”

“Liquid means software and silicon means hardware. It is a collaborative software/hardware technique,” says Li. “You can have a supercomputer in a box if you want. We want to target a lot of very interesting and data-intensive applications, including facial or voice recognition, natural language processing, and graph analytics.”

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A new study says computers can tell whether you will be a criminal based on nothing more than your facial features.

Echoing the 1960s space race, countries are using brains over brawn to flex their national strength. But the implications could be disastrous.

This Tuesday, Microsoft announced it is partnering with OpenAI, the non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company founded and funded by Elon Musk and other industry luminaries. OpenAI seeks to develop AI to benefit all of humanity — a goal Microsoft isn’t foreign to, with its open-source deep learning software.

“It’s great to work with another organization that believes in the importance of democratizing access to AI,” reads OpenAI’s official blog announcement about the partnership. For their part, Microsoft sees a valuable partner in OpenAI. As one spokesperson said in an interview for TechCrunch: “Through this partnership, Microsoft and OpenAI will advance their mutual goal to democratize AI, so everyone can benefit.”

OpenAI will make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform. “Azure has impressed us by building hardware configurations optimized for deep learning — they offer K80 GPUs with InfiniBand interconnects at scale,” says OpenAI. Azure is optimized for AI workloads, using its Azure Batch and Azure Machine Learning, coupled with Microsoft’s rebranded Cognitive Toolkit.

Continue reading “Microsoft Unites with Elon Musk on Breakthrough AI Project” »

Controlling artificial intelligence devices by voice will come soon said AI expert Neil Jacobstein.

Artificial intelligence is set to transform the world, the audience at a Christchurch conference on the future was told.

Artificial intelligence (AI) “allows us to expand the range of the possible, to do things we never thought we could do before,” said Neil Jacobstein who chairs the artificial intelligence and robotics track at Singularity University, a think tank based in California.

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DALLAS — AT&T is experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) and combining it with software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) to figure out a better way to run its network.

Speaking on a panel at the 5G North America conference, Brian Daly, director of core network and government regulatory for AT&T, said that the company is looking at AI as a way to operate its network more efficiently by using it to make decisions that currently might require human interaction today. “We see AI combined with SDN and NFV as a way to provide us with efficiencies that may not exist today,” Daly said.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=J7_RDJtkBZ0

Microsoft has announced a new partnership with Elon Musk’s OpenAI nonprofit to advance and democratize artificial intelligence. Between OpenAI and Microsoft AI and Research, open-source AI breakthroughs should not take too long to surface. Pictured here are Harry Shum, Microsoft AI and Research Group executive vice president, and Sam Altman, co-chair of OpenAI. ( Microsoft Blog )

Microsoft is partnering its artificial intelligence research arm with Elon Musk’s nonprofit OpenAI, announcing the “industry’s first cloud bot-as-a-service” on Microsoft Azure.

Continue reading “Microsoft Partners With Elon Musk-Backed OpenAI To Democratize Artificial Intelligence: What Does This Mean?” »

TOKYO — Leading information technology companies are rushing to create systems that use artificial intelligence to defend against cyberattacks. The goal is to commercialize AI software to detect even ingeniously designed attacks, identify the perpetrators, and quickly mount a defense.

However, research is also taking place in the U.S. and elsewhere on ways to harness AI for cyberwarfare, and the trend suggests there will come a time when the battles in cyberspace pit AI against AI, leaving humans sidelined.

Fujitsu Laboratories, the R&D unit of Japanese IT giant Fujitsu, has begun to develop an AI system to protect corporate information systems from cyberattack. The system would learn to recognize regular patterns of network activity so deviant behavior stands out. The company aims to have a commercial product ready in two to three years that could uncover and respond to attacks even from hackers who intentionally space out their login attempts so they are difficult to discover.

Continue reading “Cybersecurity companies adopting AI, but so are hackers” »