AI news: June 2020

The June 2020 month-end artificial intelligence news round-up from Startup News Asia

The links below represent a broad at-a-glance view of artificial intelligence technology news from June 2020.

Items featured span the impacts of AI and ML technologies, both in functional terms and in societal terms; AI in facial recognition systems, and machine learning’s impact on our working environments, for instance.

Each headline below links to the article it was originally drawn from; each article was also delivered to Startup News Asia’s daily news feeds on social media and via the Startup News Asia app.

• ICYMI: Microsoft to terminate dozens of journalists and editorial workers at Microsoft News and MSN organizations to instead use AI to curate and edit
• Why AI-driven automated news production isn’t ready for prime time, courtesy of Microsoft’s MSN blunder
• Download: PwC Global Artificial Intelligence Study – Exploiting the AI Revolution (pdf)
• Australia to join 13 nations and European Union for Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, organisation setting a framework on use of artificial intelligence
• Alibaba Group cloud-computing division preps to hire 5000 tech staff globally over the next 10 months, across roles in networks, databases, servers, chips and AI
• An intro to the finalists from the 3rd edition of Start-up Express entrepreneurship development program delivered by Hong Kong Trade Development Council (pdf)
• India: Gov’t launches AI portal, aiming to provide a one-stop platform for all aspects of the country’s AI-related developments
• India joins Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, multi-stakeholder global coalition aiming for ethical development and use of AI
• Singapore: An intro to Digital Commerce Intelligence, AI-driven startup focusing on data-driven competitive intelligence for e-commerce firms
• Vietnam: Ministry of Info and Comms launches VAIS, Vietnamese speech-to-text generator, and Vbee text-to-speech engine for use by government organisations
• India: Flipkart e-commerce giant, owned by Walmart, to roll out AI-powered voice assistant, supporting Hindi and English and with plans for more languages
• China: Zuoyebang raises $750M with AI-backed online tutoring service focused on kindergartners to 12th-graders, and claiming 170M monthly active users
• South Korea: An intro to Mathpresso’s Qanda, AI-powered edtech platform analyzing math problems from submitted photographs

• Japan: Ubie medtech startup gains $18.7M with AI-driven healthcare software, focused on both identification of symptoms and creation of clinical records
• South Korea: VUNO startup focused on AI-driven medical solutions gains European certification, opening doors to 27 EU member nations and European Free Trade Assoc’n
• Gaze artificial intelligence startup raises $830K seed funding with visual recognition API platform, enabling integration of visual recognition tech into any software stack
• ICYMI: Sberbank, one of Russia’s largest state-owned banks, partnered by Visa and Azbuka Vkusa supermarket chain to pilot Take&Go store, similar to Amazon Go
• Australia: Vic Gov’t to contribute $1.5M to establishment of country’s first multimillion-dollar accelerator and fund for artificial intelligence scale-ups (pdf)
• Singapore: Huawei announces new initiatives including 5G-powered AI lab, virtual AI academy with over 140 free courses, and training for AI developers
• India: M12, Microsoft venture arm, opens Bengaluru office to focus on B2B software startups working in AI, business applications, infrastructure, security and more
• China: OO Eyetech gains $1.3M funding from Foxconn with AI-based diagnostic solution targeting early-stage myopia
• China: Qualcomm Ventures, VC arm of US chip supplier, adds 3 startups working in IoT, AI and 5G, adding to over 60 existing investments in play for 5G position