PETALING JAYA: Dagang NeXchange Bhd (DNeX), via subsidiary Genaxis Sdn Bhd, has signed a joint-venture (JV) and shareholder agreement with Agorai Pte Ltd to provide artificial intelligence (AI) consulting services. Under the agreement, both companies will set up a JV company in Switzerland with an operating office in Malaysia, which will provide AI-related consulting services on a global scale. The JV company will be 50% owned by DNeX. DNeX will invest US$5mil in this exercise, where the company will receive a minority convertible equity investment in Agorai, as well as an enterprise development licence to Agorai's AI toolkit, which includes deep learning, machine vision and natural language understanding tools.

Ministers have agreed a technology tie-up with Emmanuel Macron's government that will see the UK unite with France in areas such as artificial intelligence and cyber security. Matt Hancock, the Culture Secretary, will this morning announce the two countries plan to work together to pool industry and academic research. Britain and France will host a conference later this year to encourage cross-Channel investment, targeting work on AI in particular. It comes as France's new government tries to shake off its reputation for protectionism and onerous employment rules that has held back start-ups in the country and seen Paris lose out to London as a tech hub. Last year more venture capital deals were signed involving French tech companies than British ones, the first time this has happened in half a decade, although the UK raises far more money in total and dominates rankings of European "unicorns", start-ups with valuations of more than $1bn (£720m).