TWO student teams are representing Malaysia in an ongoing international Artificial Intelligence (AI) competition. And one of them is from Curtin University Malaysia. The third annual Asia Pacific High Performance Computing – Artificial Intelligence (APAC HPC-AI) Competition is running from May 20 to Oct 15 and is co-organised by the HPC-AI Advisory Council and the Singapore National Supercomputing Centre. This year's edition of the competition encourages international teams in the Asia Pacific to showcase their mastery of high-performance computing and AI expertise in a friendly yet spirited competition that builds critical skills, professional relationships, competitive spirit and lifelong camaraderie. Held remotely, the competition is seeing a record number of teams – 30 in total – comprising undergraduate and graduate competitors from some of the region's leading academic institutions.

An international competition in artificial intelligence and robotics is set to take place in Dubai this week. The First Global Challenge aims to foster a culture of innovation and creativity in students across the UAE. The four-day event begins on October 24 at the Dubai Festival Arena and more than 1,500 young people are expected to attend. The theme of this year's contest is'Ocean Opportunities', with students competing to tackle issues from pollution to sustainability. "This event comes amidst repeated international calls to strengthen cooperation to find effective solutions to the issue of marine pollution by working on the adaptation of the latest technology," said Ahmed Al Falasi, Minister of State for Higher Education and Advanced Skills.

China is beating the US in AI and Europe's AI experts are challenging both US and China, but a new contender for AI leadership is rapidly emerging. The startup nation of Israel is targeting today's hottest tech sector by deploying its expertise in cutting-edge data analysis, software and hardware engineering talent, and proven entrepreneurial skills. According to analyst Daniel Singer, Israeli AI startups (using technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, robotics, and speech recognition) have raised close to $2 billion in 2017, an increase of 70% over 2016, and have already raised $1.5 billion this year. An average of 140 startups have been created annually over the last 5 years and there are now over 950 active Israeli startups utilizing or developing AI technologies. It's good to be a member of this exclusive club.