Displaying items by tag: Artificial intelligence

Huawei is ramping up efforts in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) business, which still has access to US chips despite sanctions against the company, in a move to secure its survival, according to the Financial Times.

Huawei has seen rapid growth in its cloud computing business, which sells computing power and storage to companies, including giving them access to AI.

The cloud business is key to stabilizing Huawei in its home market, as Beijing will increasingly support the company through public cloud contracts.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic struck, Huawei observed the acceleration of cloud computing – putting its unit on an equal footing with its smartphones and telecoms equipment businesses.

In January, the company announced changes to its organizational structure and management team, creating a fourth business group for its cloud computing and AI divisions in a sign that the telecom giant is aiming its attention at this growing sector.

A focus on cloud computing puts Huawei in direct competition with the biggest Chinese players including Alibaba and Tencent, as well as global heavyweights such as Amazon and Google.

The changes echo Huawei’s “Cloud Only” strategy in which the company pledged to invest more resources and funds to build a “full-stack cloud platform.”

This shift in focus is necessary because the outlook for Huawei’s smartphone and other consumer products unit is impaired in the face of US restrictions. The consumer unit was responsible for half of Huawei’s $122 billion revenue last year.

The Trump administration has restricted technology exports to Chinese companies in particular, notably Huawei, citing national security risks.

Meanwhile, vendors of semiconductors needed for cloud computing are still allowed to ship to Huawei if they have a license exempting them from the restrictions.

Microsoft and Altran, the design and engineering firm recently acquired by Capgemini, have collaborated to develop an AI-based tool to predict the likelihood of bugs in source codes created by developers early in the software development process.

By applying machine learning (ML) to historical data, the tool – called “Code Defect AI” – identifies areas of the code that are potentially buggy and then suggests a set of tests to diagnose and fix the flaws, resulting in higher-quality software and faster development times.

Bugs are a fact of life in software development. The later a defect is found in the development lifecycle, the higher the cost of fixing a bug. This bug-deployment-analysis-fix process is time consuming and costly. Code Defect AI allows earlier discovery of defects, minimizing the cost of fixing them and speeding the development cycle.

“It’s well known that software developers are under constant pressure to release code fast without compromising on quality,” said Walid Negm, Group Chief Innovation Officer at Altran.

“The reality however is that the software release cycle needs more than automation of assembly and delivery activities. It needs algorithms that can help make strategic judgments ‒ especially as code gets more complex. Code Defect AI does exactly that.”

Code Defect AI relies on various ML techniques including random decision forests, support vector machines, multilayer perceptron (MLP) and logistic regression. Historical data is extracted, pre-processed and labelled to train the algorithm and curate a reliable decision model. Developers are given a confidence score that predicts whether the code is compliant or presents the risk of containing bugs.

Code Defect AI supports integration with third-party analysis tools and can itself help identify bugs in a given program code. Additionally, the Code Defect AI tool allows developers to assess which features in the code have higher weightage in terms of bug prediction, i.e., if there are two features in the software that play a role in the assessment of a probable bug, which feature will take precedence.

“Microsoft and Altran have been working together to improve the software development cycle, and Code Defect AI, powered by Microsoft Azure, is an innovative tool that can help software developers through the use of machine learning,” said David Carmona, General Manager of AI Marketing at Microsoft.

Code Defect AI is a scalable solution that can be hosted on premise as well as on cloud computing platforms such as Microsoft Azure. While the solution currently supports GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, it can be integrated with other source-code management tools as needed.

Ericsson has launched a new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based managed services offering for communications service providers – the Ericsson Operations Engine. The solution is an end-to-end managed services operating model that, through Artificial Intelligence, automation, and the power of data, reimagines network and IT operations, network design and optimization, and applications development and maintenance.

The Ericsson Operations Engine directly and proactively addresses service providers’ managed services complexity challenges as the industry moves to the reality of 5G and IoT.

The Ericsson Operations Engine has three building blocks: 

• Service-centric business model based on business outcomes: Using AI, automation and data insights, the Ericsson Operations Engine addresses targeted business outcomes for service providers such as enhanced customer experience, revenue growth and efficiency.
• End-to-end capabilities: delivering on business outcomes through AI-based design, planning and optimization, data-driven operations, dynamic deployment, applications development, and collaborative innovation.
• Components: Best-in-class tools and processes that leverage data, AI and automation as well as expertise and investments in the service provider domain.

Peter Laurin, Senior Vice President, Head of Managed Services, Ericsson, said, “Networks are quickly becoming significantly more complex to operate as we introduce IoT and 5G at scale, and virtualize core networks, while aiming to enhance user experience at the same time. The Ericsson Operations Engine enables us to create sustainable differentiation for our managed services customers as it evolves operations from being network-centric to user experience-centric.  It fundamentally changes our way of operating networks from reactive to proactive, leveraging data, automation and artificial intelligence.”

Curtis Price, Program Vice President, Infrastructure Services, IDC, commented: “Managed services will play a significant role in the service providers transformation initiatives taking place worldwide. Nearly 65 percent of service providers indicate that managed services will be key in addressing their main operational concerns around customer satisfaction – improving customer experience is the number one factor that will influence service providers use of managed services – revenue growth and cost efficiency. It's also clear that advanced technologies like AI, automation and analytics represent the underlying pillars for supporting and enabling operational transformation through managed services partnerships.”

The Ericsson Operations Engine, as well as the latest trends and future of managed services, will be showcased by Ericsson at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.

Chinese AI firm SenseTime and Qualcomm Technologies announced plans to collaborate on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for future mobile and IoT products. This collaboration will draw from the expertise of both companies in AI by leveraging SenseTime’s ML models and algorithms with Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms, which offer advanced computing capabilities for client based AI.

“To develop an AI ecosystem, it takes efforts from players in multiple industries,” said Dr Li Xu, co-founder and CEO of SenseTime. “The strategic collaboration between SenseTime and Qualcomm Technologies will advance on-device intelligence by leveraging our algorithm and Qualcomm Technologies’ chipset. Together we’ll push the envelope and extend AI to places that are currently beyond reach.”

Devices such as smartphones and connected cameras are becoming more intelligent with the proliferation of AI. The companies expect to drive the popularity and development of on-device AI in areas such as innovative vision and camera-based image processing.

Implementing AI on the device provides a number of advantages over cloud-only implementations, enabling edge devices to provide reliable execution with or without a network connection. Additional benefits of on-device AI include real-time performance, privacy protection and enhanced reliability.

“Qualcomm has been conducting fundamental research in AI over a decade,” said Keith Kressin, senior vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies. “In fact, many devices shipping today using our Snapdragon mobile platforms already utilize on-device AI. We look forward to the results of our collaboration with SenseTime to further accelerate new and exciting capabilities of on-device AI for millions of customers using mobile devices.”

Currently, Qualcomm Technologies is focused on optimizing the Snapdragon mobile platform to accelerate myriad AI use cases in the areas of computer vision and natural language processing — for smartphones, IoT and automotive — and is researching broader executions in the areas of wireless connectivity, power management, and photography.

SenseTime is a leading company in artificial intelligence and its applications. It plays an important role in deep learning algorithm innovation and has built a proprietary deep learning platform called Parrots. The company's deep learning technology makes it possible to innovate and develop a variety of algorithms with low cost and quick turn-around.

SenseTime has made breakthroughs in algorithm model miniaturization. Its strategic collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies is expected to drastically improve the speed and efficiency of combining algorithm and chipset, making SenseTime's AI technology more pervasive.

Huawei has unveiled its first smartphones fitted with its first AI mobile chipset, the Kirin 970. The Huawei Mate 10, Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10 were unveiled in Munich on October 16, and combine the Kirin 970 chipset and EMUI 8.0 Android interface. The Mate 10 Series continues its legacy of long-lasting battery life, while integrating New Leica Dual Camera technology.

With an all-new FullView Display, the Huawei Mate 10 features a 5.9-inch screen with a 16:9 display and HDR10 to support vivid colors. The 6-inch Huawei Mate 10 Pro features an 18:9 OLED display, high screen-to-body ratio and HDR10 for dynamic video viewing. The devices feature 3D Glass Body and the back of the devices feature a reflective band design to highlight the New Leica Dual Camera. The Mate 10 Pro is IP67 Water and Dust Resistant.

The Huawei Mate 10 (64GB + 4GB) will sell for €699; the Huawei Mate 10 Pro (128GB + 6GB) will sell for €799; and the Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10 (256GB + 6GB) will sell for €1,395.

“As we enter the age of intelligence, AI is no longer a virtual concept but something that intertwines with our daily life. AI can enhance user experience, provide valuable services and improve product performance,” said Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group. “The Huawei Mate 10 Series introduces the first mobile AI-specific Neural Network Processing Unit, launching a new era of intelligent smartphones.”

The Kirin 970 chipset, launched this year during IFA Berlin, is built using an advanced TSMC 10nm semiconductor manufacturing process, and features an octa-core ARM Cortex CPU, a first-to-market Mali-G72 12-core GPU and the first NPU designed specifically for a mobile device. The Kirin 970 also has a new dual ISP for AI-powered intelligent photography.

The specialized NPU, combined with Huawei’s HiAI mobile computing platform, means the Kirin 970 delivers 25x better performance and 50x greater energy efficiency for AI-related tasks, compared to four Cortex-A73 cores, Huawei said. The Huawei Mate 10 Series also supports fast LTE connectivity and download speeds. The device comes with the world’s first dual 4G SIM support and dual VoLTE connections.

By combining individual and collective intelligence for on-device AI, the devices deliver real-time responses to users, including AI-powered Real-Time Scene and Object Recognition and an AI Accelerated Translator. Kirin 970 is an open, mobile AI computing platform for third parties to create new and imaginative AI applications and which extends Huawei’s processing capabilities to the entire value chain.

New Leica Dual Camera

Huawei again partnered with Leica to co-engineer the dual-lens camera for the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro. They combine 12-megapixel RGB + 20-megapixel monochrome sensors, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), dual lenses with the world’s largest aperture of f/1.6, AI-powered Bokeh Effect and AI-powered Digital Zoom.

New AI-powered Real-Time Scene and Object Recognition, which automatically chooses camera settings based on the object and scene, supports an advanced AI-powered Digital Zoom function with AI Motion Detection for clearer and sharper pictures.

The devices pack a 4000 mAh high-density battery featuring a smart battery management system that understands user behavior and intelligently allocates resources to maximize battery life.

It supports 4.5V / 5A low-voltage fast charging, powering the device from 1 percent to 20 percent in 10 minutes, and from 1 percent to 58 percent in 30 minutes. Additionally, Huawei SuperCharge is the world’s first fast charging technology to receive TÜV Fast-Charge Safety Certification, ensuring safe end-to-end charging.

The devices will launch with Huawei’s all-new EMUI 8.0 powered by Android 8.0. Features include an AI Engine to fully leverage the capabilities of the Kirin 970; an AI Accelerated translator to deliver faster and more accurate interactive translation for a smoother communication experience; an easy projection feature to connect the new Huawei Mate Series to a larger screen; support for a full desktop experience – either mirroring or extending the smartphone display like a PC.

The new Mate 10 will be available starting in late October in more than 15 countries and regions including Spain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. The Mate 10 Pro will be available beginning in mid-November in more than two dozen countries, including Germany, France, Italy, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10 will also be available starting in mid-November.

Consumer-grade robots have much more potential beyond trivial tasks around the home, according to a recent study from the User Experience Strategies (UXS) services at Strategy Analytics.

The study, which investigated the needs, behaviors and expectations of consumers regarding consumer-grade robots, found that a broader range of movement and the addition of features such as arms and hands and modular elements to enhance task flexibility, will allow robots to become true assistants in users’ lives.

“Robots that are modular can be equipped with the latest accessories to expand their functionality, increasing their longevity and adaptability,” commented Mathew Alton, analyst and report author. “In addition, robots that have the ability to ‘learn’ unpredictable tasks through artificial intelligence (AI) would also be able to adapt to a user’s changing requirements.”

Tasks which can be accomplished with arms and hands are more desirable to users because they are usually more time intensive than tasks such as vacuuming and moving, the study found. Broader ranges of movement are idealized because they provide robots with new ways to go about their tasks.

Robots on wheels are perceived to be quick and thus suitable for security and cleaning devices; whereas bipedal robots can traverse objects; and robots that can fly can assist users by providing aerial perspectives, the study found.

In addition, wearable robots would allow consumers to excel at tasks that would be otherwise impossible for them to do such as intense physical labor. They could attach to the user directly, augmenting their ability to do strenuous tasks such as heavy lifting. Also, at times when it is inconvenient or impossible to venture out and retrieve things such as groceries, robots designed for retrieval could be deployed instead.

“A robot that can be physically altered to perform a myriad of different tasks will be easier to sell than one that does only one predictable task,” said Chris Schreiner, Director of Syndicated Research, UXIP. “A functioning ‘base’ robot would encourage an ecosystem of add-ons and accessories, providing a revenue source over time.”

Huawei has outlined its ambition to become a “global iconic tech brand”. Ms. Glory Cheung, Huawei Consumer Business Group’s Chief Marketing Officer, made the statement at the Chinese company’s ‘Future of Innovation’ event held in Dubai on Sept. 20. Ms. Cheung was joined by two other Huawei Business Consumer Group executives, who emphasized the company’s ambition to become the number one smartphone brand.

Ms. Cheung spoke highly of Dubai and the wider Middle East region, praising the growth of innovation in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. She said Huawei is pleased to support the region’s agenda of fostering innovation. Ms. Cheung added, “We look forward to being a part of the region’s innovation agenda and continue to be its champion by bringing cutting-edge technologies to the Middle East’s rapidly evolving digital arena.”

Huawei has grown significantly as a smartphone brand the past few years. Huawei surpassed Apple in global smartphone sales consistently for June and July this year, according to research from Counterpoint’s Market Pulse for July 2017. Huawei’s global growth, according to Counterpoint Research Director, Peter Richardson, can be attributed to its consistent investment in R&D and manufacturing, coupled with aggressive marketing and sales channel expansion. 

“Globally, Huawei is a top investor in R&D (research and development) and we focus on bringing together the world's best intellectual resources to strengthen our innovation capability,” said Ms. Cheung discussing Huawei’s growth. “This is to ensure we are constantly delivering intelligent innovations to enhance and exceed mobile experiences of our customers.”

However, a weak presence in the South Asian, Indian and North American markets has limited Huawei’s potential growth in the near-to mid-term to take a sustainable second place position behind Samsung, Mr. Richardson claims. The company is “over-dependent on its home market China where it enjoys the leadership position and operator-centric markets in Europe, Latin American and Middle East,” he said.

Nevertheless, Ms. Cheung emphasized Huawei’s commitment to fueling innovation and collaborating with leading partners around the world to transform customers’ experience, as well as Huawei’s growing market share year-on-year. With the release of Apple’s new iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X, Huawei could slip back into third place, which the company is clearly aware of, hence its focus on driving brand recognition.  

Mr. Clement Wong, Head of Global Product Marketing, Huawei CBG, highlighted the company’s vision of the next frontier in mobile and introduced Huawei’s newest 970 Kirin – an artificial intelligence (AI) powered chipset. By combining the power of the cloud with the speed and responsiveness of native AI processing, Huawei confirmed that it will unveil the Huawei Mate 10 series with Kirin 970 at an event in Munich on October 16.

“Huawei is committed to developing smart devices into intelligent devices by building end-to-end capabilities that support coordinated development of chips, devices, and the cloud,” said Mr. Wong. “The ultimate goal is to provide a significantly better user experience. The Kirin 970 is the first in a series of new advances that will bring powerful AI features to our devices and take them beyond the competition.”

While Huawei climbed to be the world’s second largest brand overall this month, Counterpoint Research analysts pointed out that none of its models broke into the top ten rankings. Senior Analyst, Pavel Naiya said Huawei’s diverse portfolio allows the company to fight on multiple fronts, but it “does little to build overall brand recognition; something Huawei badly needs if it continues to gain share.”

Huawei will be banking on the release of its forthcoming AI-powered smartphone to boost its brand recognition in the premium smartphone segment.

The event also provided an understanding of Huawei’s vision and plans for the Middle East. Mr. Gene Jiao, President of Huawei CBG, Middle East and Africa, said the Middle East is “one of the most crucial markets for Huawei and over the last couple of years, we have grown from strength to strength, focusing on improving the quality of our products, services and market performance.”

According to the 2017 H1 GFK report, Huawei is now ranked number two in the Middle East and Africa region in terms of sales volume with 13.8 percent market share, after Samsung. Mr. Jiao said Huawei will continue to invest in partnerships with key government entities across the region to support innovative growth.  

Shenzhen-based telecom vendor ZTE recently launched its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solution to help operators build next-generation highly-intelligent and cost-effective automated AI networks. From platform, services, network and chip aspects, the solution fully elaborates on future-oriented AI end-to-end architecture, applications, as well as typical scenarios.

With a unified AI platform, ZTE's AI Solution can provide diversified applications, for cloud service, intelligent network, as well as chip and terminal.

AI-based cloud service application can provide voice and video services which are based on face recognition, human and vehicle identification, speech recognition and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies.

AI-based intelligent network application, which is based on precision algorithms, can provide intelligent network operation & maintenance (O&M) solution, intelligent network optimization solution, as well as intelligent network operation solution and more.

In chip and intelligent terminal perspective, the solution can provide self-research AI chip, self-research robot module, and self-research intelligent terminals such as smart phone and smart home terminals.

Complemented with high computing power, precision algorithm and data analytics capability, AI technology will lead to the evolution of highly intelligent autonomous, automatic, self-optimizing and self-healing networks.

At this stage, operators and vendors are still proactively exploring and seeking more efficient, stable and accurate AI algorithms and solutions to reduce the operation labor cost and effectively improve operating income.

Presently, ZTE has taken the lead in collaboration with a number of leading global and domestic operators. Through joint R&D design, joint field tests, actual network data acquisition, training and optimization, algorithm and solution iteration as well as commercialization processes have been expedited.

In addition, this helps operators introduce new technologies and build next generation intelligent network more conveniently amidst the ongoing advancement of AI technologies.

SK Telecom announced that its mobile navigation app ‘T Map’ is now powered by its artificial intelligence (AI) platform NUGU, named ‘T Map X NUGU’. The AI-based navigation service allows drivers to use their voice to enjoy the existing navigation features as well as other useful features offered by NUGU.

T Map was launched by SK Telecom in 2002, and is the leading mobile navigation service in South Korea. In July 2016, the company opened T Map to subscribers of all mobile carriers free of charge. As of August 2017, T Map has around 10.14 million monthly active users, taking up about 68 percent of the South Korean mobile navigation market.

T Map X NUGU significantly enhances the safety for drivers, according to SK Telecom, by allowing them to easily set and change destinations without ever having to take their eyes off the road or hands off the wheel. Moreover, users can ask the voice assistant to find the closest or cheapest gas station and begin providing route guidance to the selected destination. It will also show and guide the driver to the nearest parking lot.

While driving, users can request real-time traffic information, including accidents on roads, and adjust the voice guidance volume through voice commands. Upon arriving at their destination, users can also tell it to end the service/close the app. Users can choose one of two wake words: Aria or Tinker Bell.

T Map integrated with NUGU enhances drivers’ in-car experience by offering useful infotainment services such as news briefing, weather report, sports scores and daily horoscope, SK Telecom claims. Users can also listen to music (Melon) and manage their personal schedules (Google Calendar) by installing the NUGU app.

SK Telecom plans to add more features to T Map X NUGU by November 2017. For instance, when there is an incoming call, drivers will be able to use voice commands to either receive the phone call, or send a text message that states the estimated time of arrival or simply says “I am driving now.”

T Map X NUGU has achieved a 96 percent success rate in voice recognition despite diverse sources of noise, including car engine sounds, wind and people’s conversations. Moreover, with the integration of NUGU into T Map, SK Telecom expects to dramatically improve the performance of the voice-based AI engine via machine learning, which will lead to the creation of new and innovative services.

“Integrated with NUGU, T Map now holds the power to significantly improve driving safety by minimizing driver distractions, while also enhancing customers’ driving pleasure and in-car experience,” said Lee Sang-ho, Executive Vice President and Head of AI Business Division. “With the aim to provide a differentiated level of experience to users, we will continue to expand the use of our AI platform NUGU to more areas of our customers’ lives.”

At IFA 2017 in Berlin, Huawei unveiled its vision for the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with the launch of the Kirin 970 chipset. Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said the company is committed to turning smart devices into intelligence devices by building end-to-end capabilities that support coordinated development of chips, devices and the cloud.

Through the Kirin 970, Huawei aims to provide a significantly better user experience, Yu said. The chipset is the “first in a series of new advances that will bring powerful AI features to our devices and take them beyond the competition,” Yu added.

“As we look to the future of smartphones, we’re at the threshold of an exciting new era.”

After years of development, Cloud AI has seen broad application, but user experience still has room for improvement in areas such as latency, stability, and privacy. The goal is for Cloud AI and On-Device AI to complement each other, Yu explained.

On-Device AI offers strong sensing capabilities that are the foundation of understanding and assisting people. Sensors produce a large amount of real-time, scenario-specific, and personalized data. Supported by strong chip processing capabilities, devices will become more cognitive of user needs, providing truly personalized and readily accessible services.

The Kirin 970 is powered by an 8-core CPU and a new generation 12-core GPU. Built using a 10nm advanced process, the chipset packs 5.5 billion transistors into an area of only one cm².

Huawei’s new flagship chipset is its first mobile AI computing platform featuring a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Compared to a quad-core Cortex-A73 CPU cluster, the Kirin 970's new heterogeneous computing architecture delivers up to 25x the performance with 50x greater efficiency.

Simply put, the Kirin 970 can perform the same AI computing tasks faster and with far less power. In a benchmark image recognition test, the Kirin 970 processed 2,000 images per minute, which was faster than other chips on the market.

New developments in AI require joint effort across the entire value chain, involving tens of millions of developers, and the experience and feedback of hundreds of millions of users. Huawei is positioning the Kirin 970 as an open platform for mobile AI, opening up the chipset to developers and partners who can find new and innovative uses for its processing capabilities.