IBM has appointed Ana Paula Assis as general manager for IBM Latin America. Assis is the company's first female executive to take up the most senior role in the region. SAP's Helen Arnold on why women make great CIOs During a conversation at SAP Sapphire, Arnold opened up about women in the board room and how she's putting SAP's own software to work inside the company. According to the firm, Assis will be accountable for the overall regional strategy as well as local talent development, in addition to pushing the company's digital transformation offering based on artificial intelligence and other new cognitive models. Assis joined IBM in 1996.

The Chinese military is developing a fleet of new submarines that will navigate the ocean without a human crew, according to scientists involved in the project. The submarines will be powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), allowing them to navigate independently and work alongside existing fleets. The crew-less submersibles will be relatively large and low-cost compared to other military watercrafts, according to scientists working on the project. The AI submarines are rumoured to be fitted with diesel-electric engines to enable them to stay at sea for several months without returning to dock. China will use these unmanned subs for intelligence gathering missions, planting sea mines, and'kamikaze'-style attacks on high-value targets, the scientists said.

Astronaut Tim Peake has launched a competition to name the British-made Mars rover set to search for life on the red planet -- and'Rover McRoverface' is already in the running. The rover is scheduled to land on the red planet in August 2021 and will be part of a mission to investigate how Mars evolved and whether it has conditions for life. People with suggestions can submit them on a designated website set-up by the European Space Agency (ESA). However, it is not a popularity poll, with an expert panel scheduled to make the final decision. As a result, 'Rover McRoverface' is unlikely to be the winning entry.

Robotic milkers are helping UConn's nationally acclaimed dairy herd run away from the pack. In May, UConn Storrs became the first campus in the nation to launch an automatic milking system that allows its pack of dairy cows to be milked when they're ready, rather than on a set, three-times-a-day schedule. In addition to freeing up UConn staff from the utterly monotonous work of milking, the on-demand, technology-driven system also allows the school's researchers to better track and manage the health of its herd. UConn is using two, $200,000 robots in addition to sensors that collect real-time data 24 hours a day to predict the healthfulness of about 88 cows and monitor their physical environment. The school added 3,000 square feet at its dairy center to house the new machines.

EtainPower is a renewable energy financing and trading ecosystem empowered by both blockchain and AI technologies. Backed by a team of top-tier engineers from Silicon Valley, we introduced a groundbreaking blockchain architecture to tokenize global renewable energy assets, allowing them to be traded rapidly and freely through our highly decentralized blockchain technology platform in a fast and safe way. Our founding team has extensive experience in the fields of new energy, Blockchain and artificial intelligence. We combine Blockchain and AI technologies and apply them to the global energy network with the goal to break the monopoly position of traditional energy giants and bring true decentralization to the smart energy ecosystem. All of our Social media links are listed below.

EtainPower is a renewable energy financing and trading ecosystem empowered by both blockchain and AI technologies. Backed by a team of top-tier engineers from Silicon Valley, we introduce a groundbreaking blockchain architecture to tokenize global renewable energy assets, allowing them to be traded rapidly and freely through our highly decentralized blockchain technology platform in a fast and safe way. Our founding team has extensive experience in the fields of new energy, Blockchain and artificial intelligence. We combine Blockchain and AI technologies and apply them to the global energy network with the goal to break the monopoly position of traditional energy giants and bring true decentralization to the smart energy ecosystem. All of our Social media links are listed below.

Cisco is set to pump $100 million (£76.8 million) into building one of the world's largest AI research centres with University College London (UCL), aiming to spur innovation in machine learning, big data and autonomous vehicles. The UK government welcomed the plans, with prime minister Theresa May and digital secretary Jeremy Wright saying the initiative will run hand-in-hand with the government's industrial strategy that aims to generate £230 billion to the UK economy by 2030. Once build, the centre will house more than 200 academics and researchers, and will train new talent in AI and innovation, digital skills and more as the centre seeks to expand the use of AI to different industries. "The UK has become the natural destination in Europe for the largest and most innovative tech companies to operate and invest," Wright said, according to City AM. "Cisco's strong commitment to the UK highlights we have the ambition, research excellence and regulatory environment for world-leading firms to develop the innovations that will change people's lives for the better." It follows figures released last month showing that London hosts twice the number of AI firms as Paris and Berlin combined, with Mayor Sadiq Khan describing it as offering "a strong pipeline of AI innovation".

Despite the rise of capabilities like machine learning, robotic process automation, and natural language processing, it is still humans that are making the critical business decisions that will determine the future success of insurance carriers. So which AI capabilities should be implemented, where, and how? The executives who get this right will secure their company's survival, but the ones who get it wrong could be instrumental to their company's demise. To get you the detail on what AI projects CXOs are implementing right now, Intelligent Insurer recently spoke to leading European insurers, AIG, Axa, Generali, Allianz, and more. In the whitepaper you'll get answers from pioneers of insurance automation to these questions: What does automation--including AI, machine learning, robotic automation, natural language, and processes automation--mean for the insurance industry, and why is it important to your company's survival?

China is developing large, smart and relatively low-cost unmanned submarines that can roam the world's oceans to perform a wide range of missions, from reconnaissance to mine placement to even suicide attacks against enemy vessels, according to scientists involved in these artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The autonomous robotic submarines are expected to be deployed in the early 2020s. While not intended to entirely replace human-operated submarines, they will challenge the advantageous position established by Western naval powers after the second world war. The robotic subs are aimed particularly at the United States forces in strategic waters like the South China Sea and western Pacific Ocean, the researchers said. The project is part of the government's ambitious plan to boost the country's naval power with AI technology.

For many companies, artificial intelligence has become a key tool in drug development. Now, two companies that specialize in AI-backed drug development are teaming up to take on the rare disease known as Duchene Muscular Dystrophy. Rockville, Maryland-based Insilico Medicine and A2A Pharmaceuticals, Inc. joined forces on a new venture called Consortium.AI. The new company will use artificial intelligence to advance discovery of small molecules for the treatment of DMD and other orphan diseases. The startup said, "computationally pre-optimized new drug candidates have already been designed for targets validated through Insilico's artificial intelligence system."