University of Maryland and Capital One on Tuesday announced a partnership to develop a workforce pipeline in data analytics, machine learning and cybersecurity. Capital One is investing $3 million through an endowment gift to advance machine learning and the two plan to create an innovation lab where students will apply classroom lessons to real-world problems. "This partnership will not only help attract and retain top faculty and students, but will also propel UMD to national prominence and excellence in these critically important fields," said Mary Ann Rankin, senior vice president and provost at University of Maryland. Just over $2 million of Capital One's gift will be used to endow a faculty chair in the department of computer science. The remaining $900,000 will support research and educational initiatives in machine learning, data analytics and cyber security.

Fortunately, as Hawking pointed out, some European policymakers have already begun legislative work on this front. In February of this year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of new rules governing AI and robotics. We are asking the European Commission to propose measures that will maximize the economic benefits of these technologies, while also guaranteeing a standard level of safety and security. Although I disagree with some of the proposals currently on offer, the fact that we are at least having a debate on the matter is a positive development.

Open any business publication or digital journal today, and you will read about the promise of AI, known as artificial or augmented intelligence, and how it will transform your business. The fact is, AI will not only transform your entire business, whether you are in health care, finance, retail or manufacturing, but it will also transform technology itself. The essential task of information technology (IT), and how we measure its value, has reached an inflection point. Instead, insight is the new currency, and the speed with which we can scale that insight and the knowledge it brings is the basis for value creation and the key to competitive advantage. This trend is fueling a surging interest in deep learning and AI, or, as IBM calls it, cognitive computing.

Russian president Vladimir Putin believes that in the future, the country that leads in artificial intelligence (AI) could dominate the world. According to a report by Russian state-funded organisation RT (which we first saw via The Verge), Putin told students that "artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all of humankind." "It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict," he said. "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." That's why Russia will share its know-how in artificial intelligence with other nations.

With federal regulators poised to repeal net neutrality rules this week, your internet service provider would be allowed to speed up delivery of some online content to your home or phone. Whether those fast lanes are coming, and what they ultimately deliver for Americans, is unclear. The concept, known as paid prioritization, involves a telecommunications company charging an additional fee to transport a video stream or other content at a higher speed through its network. The fee would most likely come from deals struck with websites such as Netflix willing to pay for a competitive advantage over an online rival. Or the fee could be charged to a company providing services that require reliably fast connections, such as self-driving vehicles or remote health monitoring of people with serious illnesses.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google said on Wednesday it is opening an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in China to target the country's local talent, even as the U.S. search firm's products remain blocked in the country. Google said in a statement the research center is the first of its kind in Asia and will comprise a small team operating out of its existing office in Beijing. Chinese policy makers have voiced strong support for AI research and development in the country, but have imposed increasingly strict rules on foreign firms in the past year, including new censorship restrictions. Google's search engine is banned in the Chinese market along with its app store, email and cloud storage services. China's cyber regulators say restrictions on foreign media and internet platforms are designed to block influences that contravene stability and socialist ideas.

A new report from the Washington-based Center for a New American Security raised the alert level of the US defence community over China's rise as an artificial intelligence (AI) superpower, one that could effectively destroy the American military by 2030. The meticulous report no doubt will send a chill through the halls of the Pentagon. Kania, as co-founder of the China Cyber and Intelligence Studies Institute, is well suited to write the investigative report using available Chinese-language open-source materials that reveal China's military thinking and progress on AI. Kania reported that China's military is pursuing advances in'impact and disruptive military applications of AI' and given it'high-level priority within China's national agenda for military-civil fusion'. The goal is to become the world's'premier innovation centre' in AI by 2030.

When living and operating in a market largely dominated by a vendor that isn't you, the strategy you must deploy is one of focus. In the early days of Power, IBM tried to take on Intel head to head and that just wasn't working. You can understand why IBM thought it could do this; it was once the most powerful company in the world. But, like Microsoft, Intel's strength largely came from providing technology to firms like IBM, and IBM's decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s not only weakened it substantially, it collectively strengthened other firms. Much like AMD, which has always been weaker than Intel, IBM needed to pick its battles, and given that the company still pretty much owns the market for enterprise-class AI with Watson, and that this segment is slated to become the most lucrative in the industry for servers over the next decade, it chose wisely to make this one of its critical areas of focus.

Investment in Big Data and AI shows no signs of slowing down. Here are some of our predictions for the year to come... Whilst we're still a far cry from the hyperbolic envisioning of robots taking over our jobs and being cast into a pit of uncertainty, there is evidence to suggest that cognitive technologies are on the rise, and Big Data is helping this. The use of technology for performing more'human' tasks is growing rapidly and is set to continue to grow well over the coming years, technology is being used more for tasks we always considered'human', like planning, strategizing and facial recognition for example. As we've seen in 2017, creative industries are succumbing to this'take over' in areas like writing music and literature. Forrester has even predicted that in 2018, automation will take 9% of US jobs, and will create 2%.

In Estonia, where the digital state was invented, the government is hard at work on the legal status of robots. The question is: do artificial intelligences deserve "human" rights? This may seem like a particularly lame way for EU bureaucrats to kill some time and spend taxpayer cash, slightly ahead of counting angels on pins, and just behind dictating rules around who can make cheese, or what wines qualify as "Burgundy." Because in a time when AI is advancing and commerce will move largely to AI-driven voice-powered systems, you will soon be in command of intelligent systems. You'll be able to request that systems buy things, reserve tickets, and purchase commodities for you.