Niti Aayog, the main policy think tank of the government, will direct the Centre's efforts to research on new technologies such as Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and 3D printing in various areas, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday. "Global economy is transforming into a digital economy thanks to development of cutting-edge technologies in digital space – machine learning, artificial intelligence, internet of things, 3D printing and the like," he said in his budget speech. Jaitley said the NITI Aayog will initiate a national programme to direct the government's efforts in the area of artificial intelligence and that the Department of Science and Technology will launch a Cyber Physical Systems Mission to establish centres of excellence to train people in robotics, AI, digital manufacturing, big data analytics, quantum communication and Internet of Things. He also said that the government was doubling the allocation for the Digital India programme to Rs 3,073 crore for 2018-19. The budget also proposed to set up five lakh WiFi hotspots to provide broadband access to five crore rural citizens. Besides, the budget has allocated Rs 10,000 crore to create and augment telecom infrastructure for the next year.

BENGALURU: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday said the government would invest in research in new areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics as it looks to prepare the country for the technology of the future. "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 on Thursday. Experts have said that IT industry, a large employment creator in the country, will be buffeted by the advent of new technologies. IT companies have also begun investing in these technologies. The finance minister also said the government would also invest in robotics, big data, quantum communication and other areas.

It is easy to confuse the current geopolitical situation with that of the 1980s. The United States and Russia each accuse the other of interfering in domestic affairs. Russia has annexed territory over U.S. objections, raising concerns about military conflict. As during the Cold War after World War II, nations are developing and building weapons based on advanced technology. During the Cold War, the weapon of choice was nuclear missiles; today it's software, whether its used for attacking computer systems or targets in the real world.

By using artificial intelligence and algorithms to analyse people's behaviour, driving habits and creditworthiness, Data Cube provides a more accurate framework for car service companies to develop new products and upgrade their services, reported Global Times. "We will connect players from various parts of the industry chain including users, insurance companies and retailers, and provide data storage, accurate product pricing and anti-fraud applications for our partners," said Peng Yong, director of ZhongAn Auto Big Data Lab. ZhongAn, together with Sinosafe Asset Insurance and Urtrust Insurance, initiated an alliance which established a big data laboratory. Data Cube is a collection of the lab's research results. ZhongAn also said more insurance and internet companies hope to join the alliance and the lab's scale is expected to expand.

The UK's population is ageing, and one of the outcomes of this is that more men are developing prostate cancer. In fact the number of deaths it causes among men has overtaken the number of deaths caused among women by breast cancer. And the latest available figures, from 2015, show that, overall, it killed 11,819 people - almost 400 more than breast cancer. However, the mortality rates for both diseases have fallen. But Angela Culhane, chief executive of the charity Prostate Cancer UK, says research on prostate cancer gets half the funding of that for breast cancer.

In today's digital and "always-on" world, customers expect retailers to anticipated and meet their needs in real time. However, this type of customer engagement is more than what retailers are used to providing.

TOKYO - Hitachi, Fanuc and AI-startup Preferred Networks are creating a joint venture to develop manufacturing systems that combine artificial intelligence and edge computing technologies to achieve superior productivity. Intelligent Edge System will be capitalized at 30 million yen ($275,000), with the three companies contributing an equal amount, the trio said Wednesday. The joint venture will be established April 2 in Yamanashi Prefecture, where industrial robot and factory automation company Fanuc is headquartered. The new company will be led by Yutaka Saito, currently an executive at Hitachi. He will take up the post of senior executive vice president at Fanuc on April 1 and become the joint venture's CEO.

Market research group, Global Market Insights, looks at the projection of the artificial intelligence market within healthcare and where major investments are coming from within the sector. In a major development that can positively impact Healthcare Artificial Intelligence Market growth, Babylon Health, a UK based digital health firm has raised nearly USD 60 million in April 2017 to diagnose patient illness by creating an AI chatbot on their smartphones. High investments made by various industry players to build more robust machine learning algorithms and big data analytics applications to deliver more effective healthcare services will completely change the medical diagnosing & treatment phase of the industry. This will help in grooming the healthcare artificial intelligence business reach greater heights. Global Market Insights, reports that healthcare artificial intelligence industry value, worth USD 750 million in 2016, is predicted to hit USD 10 billion by 2024.

Why you should listen Noriko Arai is the program director of an AI challenge, Todai Robot Project, which asks the question: Can AI get into the University of Tokyo? The project aims to visualize both the possibilities and the limitation of current AI by setting a concrete goal: a software system that can pass university entrance exams. In 2015 and 2016, Todai Robot achieved top 20 percent in the exams, and passed more than 70 percent of the universities in Japan. The inventor of Reading Skill Test, in 2017 Arai conducted a large-scale survey on reading skills of high and junior high school students with Japan's Ministry of Education. The results revealed that more than half of junior high school students fail to comprehend sentences sampled from their textbooks.

Mr Wang demonstrates YITU's facial recognition technology for withdrawing cash from an ATM. Consumers will have less to worry about when they open a bank account or lose their ATM card, thanks to the rise of facial recognition usage. YITU Technology, a Shanghai-based startup for artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition technologies, has brought its AI technology to Southeast Asia by setting up its first international office in Singapore, said co-founder Lin Chenxi. This regional office is a testament to the company's vision of creating a safer, faster and healthier world since its inception in 2012. "Southeast Asia is a growing region and has a geographic advantage in proximity to China," said Lance Wang, general manager for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau at YITU Technology.