In today's business world, it seems like every company wants to become an AI-first company. As Kevin Kelly, cofounder of Wired said, "Over time, AI will not seem any more unusual than electricity, cars, airplanes, the Internet and other major transformative technologies. Everything that we formerly electrified we will now cognitize." Our latest whitepaper "Humans Intelligent Machines: Mastering the Future of Work Economy in Asia Pacific" reveals that AI-driven intelligent machines are emerging as the number one influence on the future of work and will fundamentally change both business (reconfiguring delivery models, rethinking value prepositions, etc.) and operating models over the next five years. While it is true that intelligent machines will increase productivity and allow us to solve big problems and invent entirely new products, services, and experiences, it is also true that they will replace jobs and make certain skills and capabilities irrelevant, leaving behind those employees who are unable to keep up and compete.

Chinese startups are not shying away from adopting new technologies like facial recognition, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, and there has never been a more exciting time for the country's AI startup ecosystem. A recent research by New York-based market advisory firm ABI Research has found that Chinese AI startups raised $5 billion in venture capital funding in 2017 and overtook their US counterparts. The study, which was released on August 27, shows that investors are confident with the technologies developed by Chinese startups, their business strategies, and market potential. The overall investment value for AI startups increased year on year by a staggering 150 per cent globally in 2017, growing from $4 billion in 2016 to $10.7 billion in 2017, the research says. Contrary to their US counterparts who raised $4.4 billion of investment from 155 investments, Chinese startups raised $4.9 billion from 19 investments, indicating a sharp focus by the investors on mature AI applications with strong commercial viability and successful use cases.

The Pentagon's high-tech research agency laid the groundwork for the Internet, stealth aircraft and self-driving cars. At its 60th anniversary conference on Friday, DARPA announced a $2 billion investment to push the frontier of AI forward. "We think it's a good time to seed the field of AI," John Everett, the deputy director of DARPA's Information Innovation Office, told CNNMoney. "We think we can accelerate two decades of progress into five years." Artificial intelligence, which lets machines perform tasks traditionally done by humans, is a trendy topic in technology and business circles. For example, Google recently delighted and alarmed observers when it showed how an AI system could call a restaurant and book a reservation while sounding entirely human.

Global chip makers have lately been trying to stake out positions in next-generation vehicle technology. Last year, Intel Corp. bought Mobileye, an Israeli company known for chip-based camera systems that power automated driving features, for about $15 billion. Renesas Chief Executive Bunsei Kure said adding IDT would strengthen his company's presence as a supplier of system-on-a-chip products for vehicles equipped with advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving technology. "Competition in the semiconductor industry has become like mixed martial arts," Mr. Kure said. Renesas was the second-largest semiconductor supplier to the automotive industry by revenue in 2017 with $3.5 billion, following No. 1 NXP Semiconductors NV of the Netherlands at $4.4 billion, according to data from research firm IHS Markit .

The upcoming India Tech Conclave will be held on October 24 and 25 at Westin, Mumbai with the objective to highlight how AI and Automation will be the norm and a break away from being a novel tool in core business processes especially for pharmaceutical and FMCG manufacturing companies in the near future. When AI becomes the industry standard domestically and internationally, the need to carefully compile and curate data will be the driving force to successfully implement Automation enabled by AI. Variables selected by companies today are what will set the tone for AI efficacy in the long run, and the aim to achieve industry 4.0 will be the need of the hour for Indian Pharmaceutical and FMCG companies. This will be possible only when AI and Automation are implemented efficiently in various business processes. India Tech Conclave will look at various components that are essential to the making of a good manufacturing process enabled by AI and Automation technologies. It will attempt to encompass a spectrum of topics and themes to adequately address important variables that may or may not affect manufacturing companies in India especially when competing in an ever changing technologically driven global market.

Chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp. said Tuesday it has agreed to buy U.S. peer Integrated Device Technology Inc. for about $6.7 billion (¥747 billion), aiming to boost its expertise in self-driving car technologies. The deal allows Renesas, second only to NXP Semiconductors NV in chips used in cars, to bring on board IDT's know-how in chips for wireless networks and data storage which are crucial for self-driving cars. Renesas will pay $49.00 per share in cash for all IDT outstanding shares, compared with Monday's close of $42.08. The deal is expected to be closed in the first half of 2019, following approval by IDT shareholders and the relevant regulatory authorities, Renesas said in a statement. It will finance the acquisition with ¥679 billion of bank loans and cash, it said in the statement. The firm said the deal with IDT should "strengthen its presence in the industrial and automotive segments."

Sharp Corp.'s RoBoHon, a small humanoid robot with artificial intelligence features, will accompany tourists in taxis in Kyoto and offer sightseeing guidance in Japanese, Chinese and English starting Sept. 22, the service providers said Tuesday. Sharp, Kyoto-based taxi operator MK Co. and travel agency JTB Corp. said they have teamed up to provide the tourism package until next March 31 to meet the growing demand for sightseeing using taxis amid an increasing number of travelers coming to Japan. With the package, which will be on sale starting Monday, taxi passengers can learn about the history and culture of the sites they are visiting from conversations with RoBoHon, a two-legged robot that can interact with people using AI and has basic mobile phone functions such as voice calls and a camera. Customers can also take the robot with them from the taxis to tourist spots for use as a guide. For the tourism package, however, the robot's mobile phone and email functions cannot be used.

Finance, education, medicine, programming, the arts -- artificial intelligence is set to disrupt nearly every sector of our society. Governments and policy experts have started to realize that, in order to prepare for this future, in order to minimize the risks and ensure that AI benefits humanity, we need to start planning for the arrival of advanced AI systems today. Although we are still in the early moments of this movement, the landscape looks promising. Several nations and independent firms have already started to strategize and develop polices for the governance of AI. Last year, the UAE appointed the world's first Minister of Artificial Intelligence, and Germany took smaller, but similar, steps in 2017, when the Ethics Commission at the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure developed the world's first set of regulatory guidelines for automated and connected driving.

Working to realize a "Cloud Brain," where different AI structures interconnect and work together The bitgrit platform provides an online networking platform for data scientists with emphasis on Japan, India, and the entirety of Asia. Scientists connect and interact with one another by way of the forums, while the platform also provides opportunities for companies and individual scientists to come into contact with one another. We also actively and regularly host and participate in localized events in various regions. The AI Marketplace not only removes the middle man and liberates interaction between corporations, data scientists, and data providers, but can also help provide AI technology specially tailored to certain needs. In constructing this system on a step-by-step process, we continue moving towards our long-term goal: the creation of a decentralized AI network where different AI can interconnect with one another.

BIG DATA and analytics have been around for so long, that sometimes, they sound like'technologies' from a previous generation. Especially with all the talk around using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to make more sense of all the data that today's businesses collect. However, no business can implement an AI or ML solution without the right digital infrastructure in place. Big data and business analytics, therefore, are simply a part of the digital maturity curve that organizations must climb in order to leverage AI and ML -- and leapfrog ahead of the competition. But this isn't to diminish the value of big data or analytics in any way.