WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a total of $20 million in funding for innovative research and development in artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning. DOE's Office of Electricity has selected eight projects to receive nearly $7 million in total to explore the use of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies to improve existing knowledge and discover new insights and tools for better grid operation and management. DOE's Office of Science announced a plan to provide $13 million in total funding for new research aimed at improving A.I. as a tool of scientific investigation and prediction. "Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence will revolutionize every single aspect of our lives and help us address the complex challenges we face today, including the world's most pressing scientific challenges and securing the power grid in our rapidly evolving environment," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. "These two sets of A.I. funding will help ensure continued advancement in the scientific fields and will strengthen the resilience of our Nation's critical energy infrastructure."

Tens of millions of birds make migratory flights for the winter each year, often flying during nighttime. They're frequently spotted by the National Weather Services' network of 159 ground-based radars, which scan the skies every 4 to 10 minutes by emitting pulses of microwaves and measuring their reflections. However, ecologists have historically struggled to make use of the resulting data sets because of their sheer magnitude, which can range up to hundreds of millions of images and hundreds of terabytes over decades. In an effort to lighten the workload, scientists at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology and the University of Massachusetts' College of Information and Computer Sciences recently investigated an AI system capable of distinguishing birds in radar images from precipitation. They say that their tool, dubbed MistNet after the fine nets ornithologists use to capture migratory songbirds, not only aids with classification tasks, but can be used to estimate birds' flying velocity and traffic rates.

New Delhi: Microsoft India today launched a program under which it will train 5000 government employees over the next year on AI (artificial intelligence) and cloud computing skills. The program, called'Digital Governance Tech Tour', will comprise of physical and virtual workshops, said the company in a press release. The program was inaugurated by Amitabh Kant, chief executive of NITI Aayog, the government's policy think-tank and Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary, MeITY (The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology). The company said that the program will be open to technocrats and IT professionals across in the government, including employees of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs); government partners as well as solutions/systems integrators and is free of cost. Under the program, developers can earn the AZ-900 Certification, which demonstrates foundational level cloud computing skills on the spot at no cost, after clearing an exam.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an increasingly valuable tool for diagnostics and drug development and is being used to make medical devices more adaptive. However, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 decision in Alice has made it difficult to patent inventions involving AI, seeing as the court's derived test for Section 101 of the Patent Act prevents abstract ideas from being patented. Interestingly enough, the court's decision failed to define what an abstract idea is, resulting in Section 101 often being applied unevenly. Nimalka Wickramasekera, an Intellectual Property litigator and Los Angeles partner, discusses in BioWorld's article "Supreme Court's Alice Decision Leaves Drug, Device Firms in AI Wonderland" that Section 101 proves to be a big hurdle for evolving technology, and AI specifically, "since people are still wrapping their heads around what they're claiming as the invention." She added that she "wouldn't be surprised if every patent application based on AI has had at least one rejection at the USPTO…To get around the court's prohibition on patents for abstract ideas, AI inventors must go beyond the algorithm and its application in computing devices."

On December 11th 2017, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, refocusing NASA's efforts in human space exploration. In March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence made the surprising announcement that America would be returning astronauts to the Moon in just 5 years time. This Lunar mission, known as Artemis which stands for "Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon's Interaction with the Sun", is hoping to leave more than just a flag and footprints this time. NASA aims to establish a base on the Moon and in orbit by 2028, providing a foundation for where scientists will eventually power a mission to Mars and beyond. The Artemis mission has left many questioning whether it is possible to send human's back to the Moon in just five years time, with a report claiming that NASA would need an annual increase of $4-$5 billion on top of its $22.6 billion 2020 budget.

In my previous blog, I looked at the frustrations that many citizens experience when dealing with automated services. Chatbots frequently can't provide the answer that people want and are unable to escalate an enquiry to a human agent that can help. But as technology, notably AI, continues to improve, organizations in the public sector have the opportunity to create next-generation chatbots that will be able to offer citizens much more rewarding interactions. Today, only five percent of customer interactions with contact centers globally are powered by AI technologies, but Gartner estimates that by 2021 this will rise to nearly one in six. Fortunately, government agencies have access to a new generation of AI-enabled chatbots, capable of detecting caller intent and responding to the root causes of customer inquiries, considerably reducing call volumes. Customers can signal the same intent in many different ways.

The UK government is waging a war on traffic. Yesterday, it announced plans to open up data on congestion, repair works and any other scheduled disruptions to Britain's road network. To make this data accessible to any technology firm that wants it, enabling such companies to develop AI-powered apps that provide drivers with not only real-time traffic info, but also ahead-of-time info. Traffic is an economic disease, and as a problem it's being made more acute by the growing number of vehicles on the road. In the UK, motorists lost 178 hours to road congestion in 2018, costing £1,317 per person and setting back the UK economy almost £8 billion overall.

THE UK police are monitoring hundreds of thousands of Twitter posts containing hate speech every day. It is part of a pilot project to predict spikes in hate crimes in the run up to 31 October, when the UK is due to leave the European Union. The Online Hate Speech Dashboard is being used by analysts at the National Police Chiefs' Council's online hate crime hub, which was established by the Home Office in 2017 to "tackle the emerging threat of online hate crime". It gathers Twitter posts from across the UK and uses artificially intelligent algorithms to detect speech that is, for example, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic or directed against people from certain countries or with disabilities or from LGBT groups. The police chiefs' council tasked Matthew Williams at Cardiff University, UK, and his colleagues with developing the dashboard so that government organisations could monitor hate speech.

This week more than 700 machine learning researchers from over 30 African countries will come together at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya for the third annual Deep Learning Indaba. On paper it looks a lot like other artificial intelligence (AI) convenings around the world. There are keynotes from luminaries, talks from up-and-coming researchers, and trainings on new methods. But as we've worked with the Indaba organizers to sponsor the event over the last few months, we've learned that the Indaba represents so much more: First, the Indaba is a hub and catalyst for Africa's growing AI community. At The Rockefeller Foundation, we know that supporting communities of dedicated engineers can change the world.

The government is now working on policies to develop electronic components manufacturing base in the country and encourage exports, secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and IT Ajay Prakash Sawhney said. "From near assembly, we are right now moving in that direction seriously with policies to bringing sub-assemblies..., component manufacturing in India," Sawhney said at the Digital Governance Tech Summit. Once printed circuit board (PCB or the motherboard) assembly takes off in India, it will not only cater to the mobile phone segment, but also other major electronic devices, he added. The last five years, the MeiTY secretary said, witnessed a resurgence of manufacturing in India, starting with assembling of mobile phones. "From around six crore mobile phones that were being assembled in 2014-15, we closed the last financial year with assembly of 29 crore mobile phones within the country. Our entire consumption for the country is about 33-34 crore a year," Sawhney said.