Artificial intelligence has a sort of buzzword recently, and one that could be put to use in a varied number of fields. In the same manner, quantum computing has also generated newfound interest as a technological game-changer -- one that could, among many uses, improve cybersecurity and even build a new internet. While both have certainly gone a long way in terms of recent developments, both aren't yet as perfect as most want them to be. This is particularly true for AI, which in its current form is largely limited to specialized machine learning algorithms, capable of performing specific tasks in an automated fashion. According to a team of researchers from the Center of Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore (NUS), this process could be greatly improved by quantum computing.

The government will soon offer incentives to startups and venture funds that undertake application-oriented research on artificial intelligence across key sectors including banking, insurance, education, health, retail, and transportation. Financial allocation under the Atal Innovation Mission will be used to fund the programme on a nationwide scale and projects will be granted on the challenge mode, a senior government official told ET. The government is already providing support of up to Rs 10 crore to already established and upcoming new incubation centres depending on the set criteria laid under the Atal Innovation Mission, for which an allocation of Rs 500 crore was made in 2015-16. The original allocation under AIM for 2017-18 stood at Rs 112 crore, which has been revised to Rs 150 crore while Rs 200 crore has been allocated for 2018-19. "It has just been announced. Niti (Aayog) has been working on the subject for a while and will be coming out with a roadmap shortly," the official said requesting anonymity.

BISHKEK – I was recently offered the presidency of a university in Kazakhstan that focuses primarily on business, economics, and law, and that teaches these subjects in a narrow, albeit intellectually rigorous, way. I am considering the job, but I have a few conditions. What I have proposed is to transform the university into an institution where students continue to concentrate in these three disciplines, but must also complete a rigorous "core curriculum" in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences – including computer science and statistics. Students would also need to choose a minor in one of the humanities or social sciences. There are many reasons for insisting on this transformation, but the most compelling one, from my perspective, is the need to prepare future graduates for a world in which artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technology plays an increasingly dominant role.

With the exponential growth of Artificial Intelligence based applications in various fields, it is now making its way to the space. Japan government plans to use Artificial intelligence to analyze images of earth captured by the satellites to predict and prevent disasters. AI based analysis could be used to develop new services for disaster management in areas prone to high occurrence of disasters. The main idea is to use AI to monitor any change in the images and predict the risk of disasters. For example, changes in the steep slopes could be an indication for landslides, or changes in sea behavior may imply arrival of tsunami.

The primary thrust among global commentators last week was on dissecting and analysing the State of the Union address delivered by President Donald Trump. He tried to reach out to an American public exhausted by divisive politics and a waning faith in the American dream. The general sense was that it was a half-hearted call for unity. The focus of this column is on a global disruption in technology that is having a major impact on national and international security thinking, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the 21st Century. America's competitive edge has been its unrivalled technological superiority that made it the 20th century powerhouse leading to an unprecedented industrial growth helmed by American innovation.

Startup industry doesn't have much to take away from Budget 2018 barring two major announcements. Firstly, Finance minister, Arun Jailtey said that the government would invest in research and development in areas such as robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. To that end, Amitabh Kant-led Niti Aayog will establish a National Programme to direct efforts in the area of Artificial Intelligence towards national development. "Technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and others are the technologies of the future and NITI Aayog will establish a national programme to conduct research and development in these areas," Jaitley said in his budget speech. Appreciating the move, Keshab Panda, CEO & MD, L&T Technology Services said, "We welcome the government's thrust on encouraging R&D pursuits in the areas of AI, machine learning, robotics and edge analytics. This move will further leapfrog the innovations in this space that is significantly driven by Indian companies and will place the country at the centre of global digital transformation focus."

This society may seem dystopian, but it isn't farfetched: It may be China in a few years. The country is racing to become the first to implement a pervasive system of algorithmic surveillance. Harnessing advances in artificial intelligence and data mining and storage to construct detailed profiles on all citizens, China's communist party-state is developing a "citizen score" to incentivize "good" behavior. A vast accompanying network of surveillance cameras will constantly monitor citizens' movements, purportedly to reduce crime and terrorism. While the expanding Orwellian eye may improve "public safety," it poses a chilling new threat to civil liberties in a country that already has one of the most oppressive and controlling governments in the world.

However, in one recent piece of research, from Japan's ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories and Kyoto University, scientists said that not only was a program able to decipher images it had been trained to recognize when people looked at them but: "our method successfully generalized the reconstruction to artificial shapes, indicating that our model indeed'reconstructs' or'generates' images from brain activity, not simply matches to exemplars."

Every year, hundreds of researchers gather at the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) to hear presentations on the latest developments in AI. Increasingly, that means learning about the work of Chinese researchers. According to a study (paywall) published recently by economists at the University of Toronto, 23% of the authors of papers presented at the 2017 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence were Chinese, compared to just 10% in 2012. At the same time, the share of US authors fell from 41% to 34%. The economists see this change as indicative of China's rise to prominence in AI, and a harbinger of a future battle for AI supremacy between China and the US.

Acquiring customers is a very high cost activity for businesses and for most of the companies it requires extensive cold-calling, trial and error, and exploration of multiple channels. Improved lead generation is the primary reason why businesses are investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI), according to a survey by the Aberdeen Group. Businesses that implement AI see 59% better close rates for sales, 58% increased revenue, 54% more traffic and engagement, and 52% higher conversion. Having a long list of potential clients is great, but going through the data can be a huge task. AI-powered analytics can help the enterprise identify those leads that are likely to have a high chance of being converted. It can be used to discover and recommend new potential customers by mining the connections between people, companies, products and the Internet, while integrating with your marketing automation software to find new leads.