Detroit-based startup Derq recently announced it would join the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program. The program connects an ecosystem of smart city providers with cities, municipalities, government agencies, and enterprises to accelerate the transformation of city infrastructure and services. Derq started life as an MIT-spinoff and brings its artificial intelligence (AI) analytics platform with the goal of making cities smarter and safer for all road users and enabling the deployment of autonomous vehicles at scale. Derq now has live deployments in the USA, Europe, and the UAE. According to a 2018 World Health Organization study, there are an estimated 1.35 million traffic fatalities every year due to largely preventable crashes.

While the US government seem not yet convinced that AI power would rule the world, China and Dubai appear dead serious about the technology. In fact, Dubai a key member of the Emirates has revealed its plans to grab "soft power," in print, under the new ministry of AI. Yes, you hard that right, artificial intelligence is now a complete cabinet docket that receives government funding like health, security, and other serious ministries. It's this office that keeps the print, which reveals how autonomous robocops might in future patrol around the Dubai Mall. How smart drones will deliver goods to addresses, how flying taxis will lift and drop commuters around the city, and how buslike pods with brains will pick and drop passengers from their doorsteps.

So when the three co-founders of Dubai-based Derq, a traffic-safety startup, need to get to the carmaking capital of the U.S., they take a connecting flight on Air France through Paris or on Emirates through Boston. That typically means a four-leg, 32-hour round-trip for at least one of them once a month. It would be unthinkable for the startup, which uses artificial intelligence to predict and prevent car accidents, not to have a presence in the Motor City. So after securing a $1.5 million round of funding in October, the company opened a satellite office in Detroit. But although two of Derq's three co-founders were educated in the U.S., they aren't interested in basing their whole operation there.