Severe weather is impacting agriculture across the globe. The Midwestern United States has been continually flooding since March, inflicting $2.9 billion in property damage and threatening the livelihoods of farmers throughout the region. Internationally, food security is under threat from an onslaught of drought, while agriculture is already subject to the challenges of thin margins and complex global trade. Meanwhile, there is increasing pressure to do more with less to ensure food security for the growing global population. To meet these pressures, farmers are driven to get the most out of every harvest, even if that short-term focus may have long-term ill effects on the soil and ultimately their yield.

U.S. chipmaker Nvidia is set to win unconditional EU antitrust approval for its $6.8 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Nvidia, known for its powerful gaming graphics chips, is looking to boost its data center and artificial intelligence business via the takeover, its biggest deal, helping it to better compete with rival Intel . The European Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by Dec. 19, declined to comment. Nvidia and Mellanox also declined to comment. U.S. authorities have already cleared the deal without conditions while approval is still pending in China where Mellanox has major customers such as Alibaba and Baidu .

Dr. Iain Brown is the Head of Data Science for SAS UK&I and Adjunct Professor of Marketing Analytics at the University of Southampton. For the last decade he has been working closely with the financial services sector, providing thought leadership on the topics of risk, AI and machine learning. During his time at SAS he has been involved in driving innovation in AI and the corresponding fields of machine learning, computer vision and natural language understanding through the delivery of numerous projects. He is also a contributor to SAS' blog and an active member of the AI community on Twitter. In a wide-ranging conversation about the applications of machine learning in the financial services sector, Iain offered some helpful advice around the integration of AI into business models.

A council in England is using virtual assistants (VAs) to check it is paying staff and schools correctly. Wiltshire Council is using Microsoft technology to complete repetitive tasks such as checking payrolls in its Human Resources department. This frees up staff to work on more critical tasks that directly help the 435,000 residents in Wiltshire and the council. VAs are currently checking more than 43 payrolls each month, which cover schools and academies in the region as well as council staff. Payroll checks need to be completed before payments can be made to ensure the correct amount of money is paid to the right person or organisation.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, Dec. 5, 2019 – A powerful new supercomputer arrived this week at Idaho National Laboratory's Collaborative Computing Center. The machine has the power to run complex modeling and simulation applications, which are essential to developing next-generation nuclear technologies. Named after a central Idaho mountain range, Sawtooth arrives in December and will be available to users early next year. That is the highest ranking reached by an INL supercomputer. Of 102 new systems added to the list in the past six months, only three were faster than Sawtooth.

"Student relaxation is not the main function of the University of California, Irvine's groundbreaking library chatbot."--Source: Many campus libraries are helping facilitate deeper AI integrations on campus while also introducing students to new technology, whether they're using an AI-powered supercomputer or getting their questions answered by a chatbot.

The Nordic nation, headed by the world's youngest head of government, Sanna Marin, will mark the end of its rotating presidency of the EU with a highly ambitious goal. Finland is aiming to give practical understanding of AI to 1% of EU citizens -- or about five million people -- through a basic online course by the end of 2021. As its presidency gift to Europeans, the Finnish state provides the free online course by us and @ReaktorNow, translated to all official EU languages. It is teaming up with the University of Helsinki, Finland's largest and oldest academic institution, and the Finland-based tech consultancy Reaktor. Teemu Roos, a University of Helsinki associate professor in the department of computer science, described the near £1.5 million project as "Finland's gift to Europe" and "a civics course in AI" for every EU citizen to cope with the society's ever-increasing digitalisation and the possibilities AI offers to the job market and elsewhere.

But, 58% of businesses say that less than 10% of their company's digital budget goes towards AI. So, it's not surprising that only 15% of AI projects succeed. This disconnect comes as no surprise to us. I was an analyst at Morgan Stanley and earned my technology stripes (and scars) at Apple under Steve Jobs, while my partner and wife, Helen, is a former CIO and corporate venture capitalist. We know the hallmarks of innovation window-dressing and transformation-by-outsourcing.

Ai Editorial: Deepfakes supported by AI techniques today are considered to be a growing problem. It is vital to build AI systems that can automated deepfake detection so that risks such as identity fraud can be tackled, writes Ai's Ritesh Gupta Artificial intelligence (AI)-based identity fraud is emerging as a serious issue. Recognition of one's voices and face as a way to validate a person's identity is under scrutiny with the rise of synthetic media and deepfakes. Be it for security-related risks, user privacy concerns or fraudulent transactions, repercussions are being probed at this juncture. Technology to manipulate images, videos and audio files is progressing faster than one's ability to tell what's real from what's been faked.

From simple website optimization for the desktop to the complex and ever-evolving process of enhancing the content, Search Engine Optimization has gone through various changes over the last decade. While some aspects have never changed, such as keywords and meta tags optimizations and link building, SEO evolved a little more when it came to mobile optimization, user experience, and social media marketing. But a big change as notices when Google introduced RankBrain in 2016. RankBrain used a machine-learning algorithm to identify the patterns and the bucket data, and the process resulted in revealing a new system that analyzes a new Google search. Since then, SEO has been changing a lot with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms making tremendous betterment in improving the relevance of content for the searcher. And in the coming 2020, AI is very likely to impact the future of SEO through videos, images, voice search, and pre-trained models. Let's hear a little more about it from the experts – With the inevitable advancement of AI, it has become a necessity for every marketer to reform their marketing strategy to include AI. On top of that, AI tools will also help improve keyword research methods for better content strategy, stronger analytics and reporting system for SEO teams, and smarter personalization. Early adopters will surely reap the benefits of AI. Next, we have Dawn Anderso, Managing Director at Bertey – International SEO & digital strategy consultant, speaker, trainer, and lecturer. The impact of AI on SEO in 2020 is not anywhere near as much as you think.