As the Trump administration prepares to expand retaliatory tariff hikes of up to 25% to another $300 billion of Chinese products, Beijing has sought to highlight China's capacity to endure and overcome hardship. Yi told Bloomberg Television in an interview broadcast Friday that he expected the meeting with Mnuchin to be "difficult." But he said China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, had plenty of room to maneuver to help keep the economy growing despite the pounding the country's export manufacturers are taking as the toll from higher tariffs mounts. Speaking Thursday in France, Trump said he plans to make a decision about ramping up tariffs on China after speaking with Xi at the summit in Osaka at the month's end. "I will make that decision I would say over the next two weeks -- probably right after the G-20," he said. The Trump administration began slapping tariffs on imports of Chinese goods nearly a year ago, accusing China of resorting to predatory tactics to give Chinese companies an edge in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and electric vehicles.

More questions than answers were generated during a recent conversation at Stanford University between a pair of Artificial Intelligence giants -- Yuval Noah Harari and Fei-Fei Li. Nicholas Thompson, editor in chief of WIRED, moderated the 90-minute conversation in the packed Memorial Auditorium, filled to its 1705-seat capacity. The purpose was to discuss how AI will affect our future. Harari, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and two-time winner of the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality, is the author of international best sellers "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" and "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow." Li is a renowned AI researcher, engineer and computer science professor.

Joseph "Joe" Kava, head of data centers at Google, third from right, and Scott Beaumont, head of Greater China at Google, first right, attend the opening ceremony of the Google data center in Changhua, Taiwan, in 2013. After a decade spent trying to remain competitive in the global high tech race, officials in Taiwan appear to have decided the answer lies in AI. Taiwan has been losing out on consumer electronics orders from offshore brands–the island's long-time strength–as manufacturers look to cheaper factory hubs such as China. But investments in Taiwan by Google, Microsoft and Nvidia among others, all over the past year or two, show that Taiwan can start pivoting from hardware and become a leading R&D center in artificial intelligence. In response, the government is now scrambling to develop talent, which may otherwise fall short of what it takes to keep attracting investments from big businesses.

NEW YORK - Google on Thursday released new details about its cloud streaming video game service Stadia, which will be available in 14 countries starting in November. For the launch, Google will sell its "founders edition bundle" hardware pack for $129, with a monthly subscription price of $9.99. In Europe, the price will be €129 and €9.99 per month. The new gaming platform aims for a Netflix-style subscription that enables players to access games on any device, powered by the cloud. That could disrupt the huge gaming industry by allowing users to avoid consoles and game software on disc or download.

Founded in 2014 as a technology transfer venture company for the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, the Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture-based Miraisens Inc. says its haptic technology would make it possible to get a realistic sensation of touch through subtle changes of vibration patterns traveling through the fingertips. Miraisens founder and Chief Technology Officer Norio Nakamura, the developer of the technology, says the important thing is "how we trick our brain, which means what stimulus patterns should be given." Similar devices using haptic technology, which creates the sense of touch through force, vibrations or motion, have been developed by other companies to achieve just that, but they are generally expensive and inconvenient. Miraisens says its technology, dubbed 3D Haptics, can eliminate these worries as it is lightweight and small enough to be embedded in a game controller or TV remote at an affordable price. Miraisens Chief Executive Officer Natsuo Koda notes that haptics itself is not a novel technology; it has already been used in the flat and stationary home button on some iPhone models, Koda explains, which provides the clicking sensation when we press the button. But the firm's own technology can re-create a variety of sensations of touch in a 3D world, rather than on a surface -- a technology Koda says is "the world's first."

The government on Friday adopted a draft bill to realize its "supercity" initiative to create cities that make use of artificial intelligence, big data and other advanced technologies. In such cities, autonomous driving, cashless payments, goods delivery by drone and novel services using sophisticated technologies will be introduced in an integrated manner. Initially, the government planned to submit to the Diet a bill to revise the national strategic special zone law by the end of March. But it was unable to do that because of difficulty obtaining support from the Cabinet Legislation Bureau for related deregulation. The bill is unlikely to pass the Diet before the end of the ongoing ordinary session, set for June 26.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market based on segmentation involving both economic as well as non-economic factors Provision of market value (USD Billion) data for each segment and sub-segment • Indicates the region and segment that is expected to witness the fastest growth as well as to dominate the market • Analysis by geography highlighting the consumption of the product/service in the region as well as indicating the factors that are affecting the market within each region • Competitive landscape which incorporates the market ranking of the major players, along with new service/product launches, partnerships, business expansions and acquisitions in the past five years of companies profiled • Extensive company profiles comprising of company overview, company insights, product benchmarking and SWOT analysis for the major market players • The current as well as future market outlook of the industry with respect to recent developments (which involve growth opportunities and drivers as well as challenges and restraints of both emerging as well as developed regions • Includes an in-depth analysis of the market of various perspectives through Porter's five forces analysis • Provides insight into the market through Value Chain • Market dynamics scenario, along with growth opportunities of the market in the years to come • 6-month post sales analyst support

Artificial intelligence is playing a major role in exacerbating the problems being blamed on large digital platforms such as a Facebook Inc. and Google LLC, according to a U.S. expert who testified before the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy meeting in Ottawa this week. Ben Scott, a Stanford fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society and a former advisor to Hillary Clinton, said that it wasn't until the tech giants got hooked on machine learning that concerns about their polarizing effect and impact on democracy really took off. "It's not just the ads that get targeted. The entire communications environment in which we live is now tailored by machine intelligence to hold our attention," he said. "The more time people spend on the platform, the more ads they see and the more money they make. It's a beautiful business model, and it works."

We, at NextBigWhat, are attempting to drive forward the conversation around Artificial Intelligence in India beyond headlines that scream for attention but don't offer much, buzzwords that make your head buzz after a while, and countless utopian tales that vie for your eyes only to leave you with a scratching head and a lingering itch to actually get to the meat of the matter. In this spirit, the #AIBoss series intends to educate, inform and elevate our readers understanding of the subject as well as the space. If you're part of the leadership team of an AI based product, from enterprise or startup, willing to share your AI learnings – then reach out to us and become part of this initiative (you can apply using this form). Here is the first of our three part interview with Shailendra Tiwari, founder of Fasal, an Ag-tech (agriculture tech) startup that is focused on building AI and IOT (Internet-of-things) based SAAS solutions to address the woes of Indian horticulture farmers. Fasal's primary aims are to increase and improve the quality of the yield and lower input costs for the farmer.

Eight months after raising over Rs 207 crore in its last funding round, Droom, an online marketplace for automobiles, is making a move into the artificial intelligence (AI) space. The Gurgaon-headquartered company has invested Rs 50 crore towards setting up an AI lab and intends to leverage this emerging technology along with machine learning and big data to improve its marketplace offerings and better serve its customer base, The Economic Times reported. In October, after its Series E round, Droom had not only announced plans to further strengthen its dominance in the online automobile marketplace segment - it is currently the leading player cornering over 80% of the online automobile transactions - but had also voiced intent to invest heavily in developing AI capabilities for its vast portfolio of products. The company is now putting its plans into action. Sandeep Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Droom told the daily that the new lab would work on areas such as improving the recommended engine system for better references and alerting customers when the car needs maintenance, among others.