Huawei's Ascend line of semiconductors includes a chip that is installed on servers and performs complex AI tasks like programming algorithms, as well as a second chip for more routine functions on smartphones and other devices. With the AI chips, Huawei, the world's biggest maker of telecommunications equipment and a major smartphone vendor, is challenging American companies like Nvidia Corp., Intel Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. The new components align with broader efforts by China to reduce its dependence on advanced U.S. technologies and develop such products domestically. Under Beijing's Made in China 2025 development plan, semiconductors and AI have emerged as key areas that authorities want to develop at home. "Computing power is the foundation of AI," said Eric Xu, Huawei's chairman, at a conference in Shanghai on Wednesday.

The government is considering allowing blue-collar foreign workers with certain skills to live permanently in the country with their families, as Japan struggles with a serious labor shortage amid a declining population, sources said Thursday. In what would represent a turning point for the country's immigration policy, which more or less sanctions only the entry of highly skilled professionals, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to open the door to blue-collar foreign workers by introducing a new system next April. The government is studying two new types of residence status for foreign workers, who must have Japanese language proficiency as well as knowledge and experience in one of more than 10 fields. Those sectors include nursing care, agriculture and construction, according to the sources. Those who qualify for the first type of residence status will be issued a visa valid up to five years but will not be allowed to bring their family members. Those who qualify for the second type -- namely, highly skilled laborers -- will be offered permanent residence status and allowed to bring their family members to Japan.

Last month marked the 17th anniversary of 9/11. With it came a new milestone: we've been in Afghanistan for so long that someone born after the attacks is now old enough to go fight there. They can also serve in the six other places where we're officially at war, not to mention the 133 countries where special operations forces have conducted missions in just the first half of 2018. The wars of 9/11 continue, with no end in sight. Now, the Pentagon is investing heavily in technologies that will intensify them.

As businesses struggle to combat increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity attacks, the severity of which is exacerbated by both the vanishing IT perimeters in today's mobile and IoT era, coupled with an acute shortage of skilled security professionals, IT security teams need both a new approach and powerful new tools to protect data and other high-value assets. Increasingly, they are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) as a key weapon to win the battle against stealthy threats inside their IT infrastructures, according to a new global research study conducted by the Ponemon Institute on behalf of Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. The Ponemon Institute study, entitled "Closing the IT Security Gap with Automation & AI in the Era of IoT," surveyed 4,000 security and IT professionals across the Americas, Europe and Asia to understand what makes security deficiencies so hard to fix, and what types of technologies and processes are needed to stay a step ahead of bad actors within the new threat landscape. The research revealed that in the quest to protect data and other high-value assets, security systems incorporating machine learning and other AI-based technologies are essential for detecting and stopping attacks that target users and IoT devices. Twenty four percent of Indian respondents said they currently use some form of machine-learning or other AI-based security solution, with another 29 percent stating they plan on deploying these types of products within the next 12 months.

The announcements came as Google faces pressure over how much access outside developers have to its users' private data, including people's Gmail messages and Google profile information. Google on Monday said it planned to clamp down on such access and effectively close the consumer functionality of Google . The company has also drawn criticism for testing a mobile search engine in China that adheres to the country's censors. Google addressed privacy concerns only tangentially at the event. "We need to offer simple, powerful ways to safeguard your devices," said Rick Osterloh, Google's vice president of hardware. The company's latest Android smartphones, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, which will sell for $799 and $899, have an updated design and improvements to their already lauded cameras.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced that in less than 12 months since the release of IBM Cloud Private – an open source technology that brings cloud capabilities to organizations running on-premises IT systems – hundreds of leading enterprises worldwide have turned to the platform to help modernize their operations. They include New Zealand Police, China's Fuyao Group, Japan's Aflac Insurance, Turkey's credit bureau Kredi Kayıt Bürosu and Brazil's Fidelity National Information Services. Building on this momentum, IBM is announcing a slate of new advanced features for the on-premises private cloud platform, including the integration of powerful AI capabilities such as IBM Watson Assistant and IBM Watson Speech-to-Text, as well as support for additional public clouds, including the IBM Cloud. The updates provide clients with even more choice and flexibility for their IT journeys, and, for the first time, bring the power of IBM's Watson AI behind the company firewall. "The cloud has evolved in a very short time from being a way to cut costs to a platform for business transformation and innovation," said Robin Hernandez, Director, IBM Private Cloud Offering Management.

This week we are joined by Steven MacGregor for the second time on our show. Steven is the founder and CEO of The Leadership Academy of Barcelona and author of Sustaining Executive Performance, and his latest book is Chief Wellbeing Officer, in which he aims to show how to create a more human workplace. He is also an academic specializing in executive education, and has been a researcher at Stanford University, a teacher at IMD at Lausanne, CEIBS in Shanghai and he pioneered executive health teaching at IESE Business School. In this episode we continue to discuss the topics we opened up this season, such as the importance of passion, humanity and leadership in the age of AI and robots, and The Stockdale Paradox of holding two conflicting opinions at the same time, which is a characteristic of the present VUCA environment.

China's largest telecom equipment maker and smartphone vendor Huawei Technologies Co Ltd unveiled a range of artificial intelligence chips on Wednesday, in what is arguably its biggest-ever push to expand its presence in the semiconductor sector and to compete with US companies such as Nvidia Corp. The move is also part of Huawei's broader effort in AI. The company is working to offer a full-stack technological portfolio to support all AI application scenarios. Huawei said one of the new processors, known as the Ascend 910, boasts the greatest computing density in a single chip in the world, whose performance can beat its rival product Nvidia V100. Ascend 910 is scheduled to hit the market in the second quarter of 2019.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path? It's been a rather circuitous route to get to where I am today, but in some ways moving to Asia in 2012 was a sort of homecoming for me because I had spent much of my youth in Singapore. I was asked to head up a small operation in Macau because my former company had closed a limited training deal with the Venetian Macao. I arrived here, oversaw that project and then teamed up with SAS, our main software partner at the time, and helped close deals with other casinos in Macau, a cruise line in Hong Kong, the Resorts World group in the US, as well as a sports book in Australia. After about 18 months, I had overseen work in Macau, the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the US.

Mo Zhang is revolutionizing the path from seeing a product to buying it. Say you're watching a program on a smart TV or another device, and you like an outfit being worn by a particular model on screen. Her software can identify the items and send you to a site where you can purchase the goods. Of course, there are more unsettling uses. The types of technology being developed by Yi have been the focus of much controversy in China in recent months thanks to their increased use in public security and policing.