In a stifling room at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday, Chris Reece discussed what artificial intelligence could do for the telecommunications industry. Reece, a technologist for Award Solutions, explained that AI, which telecos have already leveraged in some situations, could help solve some of communications service providers' (CSPs) most complicated problems. CSPs have been slow to adopt artificial intelligence, Reece explained, in part because the initial problems AI was developed to address didn't really affect them. When he asked the crowd for examples of problems they'd heard of AI solving, one person suggested chess, and another mentioned image recognition. Reece agreed, saying, "I don't know a lot of teleco operators who really need a computer to tell the difference between a cat and a dog." "There's a lot of opportunity to use AI in the telecom space, and we're just starting to scratch the surface," Reece added.

As IT environments become more complex, organisations must prepare efficiently. Ericsson has turned to machine learning and AI to do just that. Mobile World Congress has focused a lot around 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), but Ericsson has shifted the focus back to artificial intelligence (AI). The telecommunications company has announced incorporating machine learning and AI within its entire organisation and customer operations. The aim of the introduction is to enable networks across the company to self-optimize, improve efficiency and deliver better user experiences.

A drone taxi using 5G technology is displayed at the Mobile World Congress on Feb. 27, 2018. Visitors try out Virtual 5G technology during the Mobile World Congress on Feb. 27, 2018. A 5G antenna is displayed at the Deutsche Telekom stand on the first day of the Mobile World Congress. Docomo 5G Robot remote humanoid assistant draws some'sumi-e' style drawings on the first day of the Mobile World Congress. Visitors look at a US company Qualcomm stand announcing '5G' technology at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, 26 February 2018 (Photo: EPA-EFE/ALBERTO ESTEVEZ) People walk by a 5G stand at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's biggest mobile fair, on February 26, 2018 in Barcelona.

Charlie Ryan says: "I don't think it will come as much of a surprise to us that there is now AI which can assess and judge our suitability from an uploaded video interaction. I think this will save a lot of time in the recruitment process and have some advantage, however it is still only one stage in the process and it is also an individual interacting with a camera, as opposed to another individual. There are so many areas that will not be assessed at this stage in the process, for example, the interaction with another human being and responding to the unexpected question or scenario. AI definitely has it's part to play in saving us a lot of time and money during some of those basic stages in recruitment and it will contribute to the objectivity of the process overall. What is important to note is that it will never replace the whole process and you need to understand what is being assessed via the AI process to get past it. As with all recruitment do your research, so as you know what you need to do to secure your position in the face to face or final part of the process."

Complex network data may be analyzed by constructing statistical models that accurately reproduce structural properties that may be of theoretical relevance or empirical interest. In the context of the efficient fitting of models for large network data, we propose a very efficient algorithm for the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of the parameters of complex statistical models. The proposed algorithm is similar to the famous Metropolis algorithm but allows a Monte Carlo simulation to be performed while constraining the desired network properties. We demonstrate the algorithm in the context of exponential random graph models (ERGMs) - a family of statistical models for network data. Thus far, the lack of efficient computational methods has limited the empirical scope of ERGMs to relatively small networks with a few thousand nodes. The proposed approach allows a dramatic increase in the size of networks that may be analyzed using ERGMs. This is illustrated in an analysis of several biological networks and one social network with 104,103 nodes.

Huawei unveiled in November 2017 the world's first smartphone-driven car using the Mate 10 Pro handset that takes control of the car using an artificial intelligence chip. The MWC presents the latests advances in mobile technologies and will be held from 26 February to 01 March 2018.

Of course, the promotional video was a lot more dramatic than what the company was actually demoing at the show itself. And while the company insisted to us that the dog in the video was, indeed real and not the result of a few clever film cuts, the poor confused pup was never actually at risk during its trials.

Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 700 series platform that will soon power mid-range Android phones. The new series of mobile processors will be able to bring some of the features of the Snapdragon 800 series to more affordable handsets. For users of flagship Android phones, their devices are likely packing the Snapdragon 800 series, while mid-rangers are packing the Snapdragon 660. For entry level handsets, those are packing the Snapdragon 200 or the 400 series. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 is intended to bridge the gap between the mid-range and flagship phones.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei has shown how an AI-powered smartphone can drive a car.As Ivor Bennett reports, the'RoadReader' project, on display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, aims to demonstrate how existing mobile technology is capable of handling autonomous vehicles. A view of a driverless Porsche car controlled by Huawai's Mate 10 Pro handset that transforms a regular car into a self-driving vehicle. BARCELONA -- I'm a passenger in a Porsche Panamera riding on a short track set up outside Barcelona's soccer stadium. But what makes this particular driverless car demo unique is that it is being piloted by Huawei's Mate 10 Pro smartphone. The Chinese smartphone maker, the third largest in the world, insists it is not getting into the self-driving car business.

You'd think that's an easy rule to follow, but Huawei seems to have forgotten. In what may be the most excruciating promotional stunt we've ever seen from a technology company in many years, Huawei based a promo for its AI on a satire of AI. Huawei claims to have set out to train a phone app that would tell a cat from a dog, then test its accuracy by driving a car at a dog. The app was a success – and the dog lived. There are one just one or two things wrong with this picture.