Exascale computing promises to bring significant changes to both the high-performance computing space and eventually enterprise datacenter infrastructures. The systems, which are being developed in multiple countries around the globe, promise 50 times the performance of current 20 petaflop-capable systems that are now among the fastest in the world, and that bring corresponding improvements in such areas as energy efficiency and physical footprint. The systems need to be powerful run the increasingly complex applications being used by engineers and scientists, but they can't be so expensive to acquire or run that only a handful of organizations can use them. At the same time, the emergence of high-level data analytics and machine learning is forcing some changes in the exascale efforts in the United States, changes that play a role in everything from the software stacks that are being developed for the systems to the competition with Chinese companies that also are aggressively pursuing exascale computing. During a talk last week at the OpenFabrics Workshop in Austin, Texas, Al Geist, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and CTO of the Exascale Computing Project (ECP), outlined the work the ECP is doing to develop exascale-capable systems within the next few years.

"We are on the threshold of the next evolutionary step in Imaging," Gene Saragnese, chairman and CEO of Israel-based MedyMatch, said in the release. "Imaging technological development has been historically focused on providing clinicians [with] the best possible image, optimizing spatial and temporal resolution, coverage and dose.

I'm Nathan Benaich -- welcome to issue #18 of my AI newsletter! I will synthesise a narrative that analyses and links important happenings, data, research and startup activity from the AI world. Grab your hot beverage of choice and enjoy the read! If you're looking to invest, research, build, or buy AI-driven companies, do hit reply and drop me a line. In a massive deal this quarter, Intel CEO agreed to purchase Mobileye for $15.3bn. The 18-year old NYSE-listed Israeli company holds a portfolio of camera-based computer vision, sensor fusion, mapping and driving policy products for advanced driver assistance features such as pedestrian, vehicle and sign detection as well as relationships with Tier 1 OEMs. Intel takes the view that "whoever has the best data can develop the best AI". Intel already has a strong position in silicon (in-house Nervana and Movidius), memory and communications.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The leaders of Russia, Germany and France agreed in a phone call on Tuesday to speed up the exchange of data aimed at fighting terrorism, the Kremlin said. They spoke following Monday's deadly bomb attack on a metro train in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg which killed 14 people and wounded 50. The Kremlin said the leaders also discussed the situation in Ukraine and the Easter ceasefire declared from April 1. A German government source said: "Merkel urged Putin to use his influence with the separatists (to keep to the April 1 ceasefire)." The Kremlin added that Putin, Merkel and Hollande have agreed to continue contacts on Ukraine.

Chatbots were all the rage a year ago. USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham wonders where they went on #TalkingTech. LOS ANGELES -- At its annual conference for software developers in 2016, Facebook trumpeted chat bots as the next big thing in tech. A year later, users of Facebook Messenger are still waiting. Chat bots, those automated robots that respond to human queries, had an underwhelming debut.

Google's latest take on machine translation could make it easier for people to communicate with those speaking a different language, by translating speech directly into text in a language they understand. Machine translation of speech normally works by first converting it into text, then translating that into text in another language. But any error in speech recognition will lead to an error in transcription and a mistake in the translation. Researchers at Google Brain, the tech giant's deep learning research arm, have turned to neural networks to cut out the middle step. By skipping transcription, the approach could potentially allow for more accurate and quicker translations.

Research commissioned by Google has found that young people consider three of the company's products among the top ten "coolest" brands in the world. According to the search giant's'It's Lit: A guide to what teenagers think is cool' study, Google-owned YouTube is the world's coolest brand, with Google in third place and Chrome – a web browser – in tenth, ahead of the likes of Apple and Spotify. "For Generation Z, what's cool is also a representation of their values, their expectations of themselves, their peers, and the brands they hold in the highest regard," notes Google. "To Gen Z, Google search and that's part of makes it cool," reads the report. The research also found that Google is more popular amongst teenagers than Twitter, with 42.2% of the study's participants said to be on the platform and 35.4% on Twitter.

BERKELEY – Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers recently took exception to current US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's views on "artificial intelligence" (AI) and related topics. The difference between the two seems to be, more than anything else, a matter of priorities and emphasis. Mnuchin takes a narrow approach. He thinks that the problem of particular technologies called "artificial intelligence taking over American jobs" lies "far in the future." And he seems to question the high stock-market valuations for "unicorns" – companies valued at or above $1 billion that have no record of producing revenues that would justify their supposed worth and no clear plan to do so.

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. The happy couple, as presented in the Qianjiang Evening News. It's even harder to find love that lasts. Sometimes, you reach a moment when you just say: "To hell with it." Which is more or less the same thing.

Uber is using a range of psychological tricks to encourage its drivers to work longer hours, often at times and locations that are less lucrative to them, according to a new report. The taxi app company manipulates drivers with app alerts and low-value rewards, with hundreds of social scientists and data scientists said to be involved in the experiment. According to the New York Times, Uber is trying to replicate techniques that make video games and TV addictive. These include achievement badges, an alert system that tells drivers they're close to hitting an earnings target when they try to log off and an algorithm called'forward dispatch', which enables drivers to book their next fare before completing their current one. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.