Employee activism and outside pressure have pushed big tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google into promising to slash their carbon emissions. When Microsoft held an all-staff meeting in September, an employee asked CEO Satya Nadella if it was ethical for the company to be selling its cloud computing services to fossil fuel companies, according to two other Microsoft employees who described the exchange on condition they not be named. Such partnerships, the worker told Nadella, were accelerating the oil companies' greenhouse gas emissions. Microsoft and other tech giants have been competing with one another to strike lucrative partnerships with ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and other energy firms, in many cases supplying them not just with remote data storage but also artificial intelligence tools for pinpointing better drilling spots or speeding up refinery production. The oil and gas industry is spending roughly $20 billion each year on cloud services, which accounts for about 10% of the total cloud market, according to Vivek Chidambaram, a managing director of Accenture's energy consultancy.

Donald Trump's latest salvo against China threatens to derail a $1 billion coming-out party for a prominent startup backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., while curtailing the country's broader ambitions of leading artificial intelligence in the coming decade. The US placed eight Chinese technology giants on a US blacklist on Monday, accusing them of being implicated in human rights violations against Muslim minorities in the country's far-western region of Xinjiang. Among those singled out for sweeping American export restrictions were SenseTime Group Ltd., the world's largest AI startup, and Megvii Technology Ltd. -- two giant enterprises Beijing is counting on to spearhead advances into a revolutionary technology, aided by billions of dollars in foreign backing. The White House's actions -- announced days before sensitive trade negotiations resume in Washington -- cast a pall over not just Megvii's capital-raising effort but the burgeoning Chinese sector. Leading players like SenseTime and Megvii, already having trouble securing financing during an economic downturn, had considered international forays to sustain a sizzling pace of growth.

Data is of vital importance for innovation and economic growth in the Digital and AI Economy. The purpose of data- and AI-driven innovation is to develop new or significantly improve existing human centred products, processes, methods or services. Data Innovation Summit is the leading data and advanced analytics event in the Nordics, constructed so it equally addresses all the elements of data-driven and AI-ready business: data, people, processes, technology and provides a holistic insight to the entire spectre of the data-to- insight-to-action process from data collection to visualisation and automation. With over 120 Nordic and international speakers on six stages, six workshop stages and plenty of learning and networking activities in the exhibition area, the 2020 summit is the place to be for all professionals and organisations working with utilisation of data for increasing profit, reinventing business models, develop data-driven products, and increasing customer satisfaction. The sessions are both business and technical, presenting a clear business output of data science, analytics, ML and AI to enhance customer experience, improve business process, reinvent business models and create new ones.

Fashion retailers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) for help in the quest to give customers what they want. AI-driven retail enables brands to compete in the economy of the 21st century and meet modern customer demands by personalizing the shopping experience. As more retail companies are taking their business from the traditional brick and mortar retail stores into e-commerce, they are able to get more insight into their customers' preferences to serve the demand. Talking about AI in retail brings us to one of the most beloved brands in the fashion industry – H&M. H&M Group has been heavily investing in artificial intelligence to stay on top of fashion cycles, and also to support its massive growth.

MILKSURE PART 1 A training course for farmers to safeguard residue-free milk – Have you recently suffered a bulk milk residue failure?

The National Water Services Commission (SPAN) acts as a watchdog in ensuring all the different water provider companies meet the need requirements when it comes to quality of water and maintenance. At the same time, SPAN is also looking at ways in which they can ensure the supply of water is consistent and able to monitor pipelines for faults and repair them with minimal impact to the supply. In a move to conserve water in Malaysia, they are also pushing for rainwater harvesting to meet the growing demand for water, especially during drought seasons. In order to achieve this, SPAN believes water companies need to digitally transform their infrastructure, so they are able to meet the demands of the industry. A lot of these companies have ageing infrastructure and rising urbanisation to deal with.

Academics and startups from Imperial College London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology presented their innovative ideas at a conference. Co-organised by Imperial Business Partners and MIT, the Innovation Journeys Conference brought together industry leaders, academics and startups from both universities to explore and share the latest technological innovations and research. Imperial Business Partners offers a unique approach to problem-solving for research-driven industries via accelerated access to Imperial's expertise, talent and facilities. Imperial's Director of Enterprise Simon Hepworth discussed the university's role in the entrepreneurial journey, saying it is present at all stages, whether that's for students or staff. The College's enterprising ecosystem is vast, ranging from academic ventures, entrepreneurship competitions and programmes such as WeInnovate and the Enterprise Lab, which supports student innovation.

But they will get here faster if states and the federal government invest in infrastructure to promote their development. Investments could include a lane on the highway that is restricted to autonomous trucks. The investments might also include special parking lots built near exits on the interstate where drivers take autonomous trucks from a regional warehouse, get out, and push the go button freeing the truck to drive autonomously to another parking lot near an interstate exit where a driver is waiting to catch the truck. The investments could even include incentives for telecommunications companies to improve the cellular coverage along certain interstates or the placement of different types of sensors along a road that communicate directly with autonomous trucks. Should states make these investments?

Meet four experts from Mowi, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Gartner and Microsoft and listen to their advice on smart ways to accelerate your cloud journey. Hear their inside stories on how you can tap into the possibilities that lie in AI and analytics, for a variety of more innovative, efficient and customized solutions – driving both sustainability and profitability. Read more about how the companies realize business outcomes with cloud, AI and robotics. Cloud is no longer an opportunity for the few niche startups like Netflix, AirBnB and Uber. It is now the underpinning prerequisite for industry disruption across every industry.

The world of AI can be full of a lot of unknowns. That's why we're committed to bringing our #PeopleofAI to the forefront. We want to illuminate what they do, how they stay on top of ever-evolving trends and research, and why this matters for smart, human business. This week, our data annotator, Emily, demystifies what goes into the data annotation process -- an integral piece in creating effective machine learning. Data annotation is the foundation upon which machine learning models are built.