Recent advances in machine learning (ML) have spotlighted the pressing need for computing architectures that bridge the gap between memory bandwidth and processing power. The advent of deep neural networks has pushed traditional Von Neumann architectures to their limits due to the high latency and energy consumption costs associated with data movement between the processor and memory for these workloads. One of the solutions to overcome this bottleneck is to perform computation within the main memory through processing-in-memory (PIM), thereby limiting data movement and the costs associated with it. However, DRAM-based PIM struggles to achieve high throughput and energy efficiency due to internal data movement bottlenecks and the need for frequent refresh operations. In this work, we introduce OPIMA, a PIM-based ML accelerator, architected within an optical main memory. OPIMA has been designed to leverage the inherent massive parallelism within main memory while performing high-speed, low-energy optical computation to accelerate ML models based on convolutional neural networks. We present a comprehensive analysis of OPIMA to guide design choices and operational mechanisms. Additionally, we evaluate the performance and energy consumption of OPIMA, comparing it with conventional electronic computing systems and emerging photonic PIM architectures. The experimental results show that OPIMA can achieve 2.98x higher throughput and 137x better energy efficiency than the best-known prior work.

Finance firms are using machine learning (ML) across their businesses with the technology's spread likely to continue as the obstacles it faces are not deemed insurmountable, according to a survey carried out by the Bank of England. The survey, which had more than 100 respondents, revealed that around two-thirds of financial services companies in the UK are using ML. The technology is used to replace manual tasks in the industry through its ability to recognise patterns in data and make decisions. "ML has wide-ranging applications in financial services and, when combined with increasing computational power, has the ability to analyse large data sets, detect patterns and solve problems at speed," said the Bank of England. "The use of ML has the potential to generate analytical insights, support new products and services, and reduce market frictions and inefficiencies. If this potential is achieved, consumers could benefit from more tailored, lower cost products and firms could become more responsive, leaner and effective."

The number of people working across the global capital markets will fall by almost a fifth in the coming decade as a wave of artificial intelligence and automation hits the industry, according to estimates from consultancy Opimas. Headcount at capital markets institutions will decrease by some 400,000 to 1.7 million between now and 2030, Opimas said in its Workforce of the Future report, with the investment industry set to be the hardest hit as it battles both the rise of new technologies and falling fees.

Wall Street's robot revolution has begun. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is rolling out a program called LOXM that executes equities trades so well, it's replacing the humans who used to do that. Goldman Sachs is in the midst of automating the initial public offering process. Innovations in financial technology -- fintech -- are creating competition in fields long dominated by the institutions. Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc. during the financial crisis, says technological advances could make 30 percent of banking jobs disappear in five years.

Wall Street's robot revolution has begun. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is rolling out a program called LOXM that executes equities trades so well, it's replacing the humans who used to do that. Goldman Sachs is in the midst of automating the initial public offering process. Innovations in financial technology -- fintech -- are creating competition in fields long dominated by the institutions. Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc. during the financial crisis, says technological advances could make 30 percent of banking jobs disappear in five years.

The robot revolution has arrived on Wall Street. The JPMorgan Chase & Co. LOXM program is so good at equities trades that it's replacing humans who used to do that work. Goldman Sachs is automating the initial public offering process. Vikram Pandit, formerly of Citigroup Inc., told Bloomberg that 30 percent of banking jobs may be gone within five years thanks to advancing technologies. Two Sigma co-founder David Siegel is also concerned that automation will soon force large portions of the workforce into obsolescence.

Wall Street's robot revolution has begun. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is rolling out a program called LOXM that executes equities trades so well, it's replacing the humans who used to do that. Goldman Sachs is in the midst of automating the initial public offering process. Innovations in financial technology -- fintech -- are creating competition in fields long dominated by the institutions. Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc. during the financial crisis, says technological advances could make 30 percent of banking jobs disappear in five years.

Artificial intelligence will be the chief beneficiary of the financial services industry's pivot to new technologies in its bid to improve performance and cut costs in the coming years. Octavio Marenzi, chief executive of the consultancy Opimas, which this week published a report entitled Fintech Spending and Innovation in Capital Markets, said AI would be "be the big winner" as banks, brokers, fund managers and other firms poured money into new technologies and data sources. His comments come with some of the biggest names in finance, including Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and Deutsche Bank, already looking for cheaper and faster ways to transform business lines that have until now relied on a human touch. The report from Opimas found that AI would have the most potential to transform banks' sales and trading divisions and the way fund managers make investment decisions. Opimas wrote: "The capital markets industry is awash in massive amounts of data. How that data gets harnessed, analysed and used across the value chain will increasingly not be up to humans, but rather machines that, eventually, will operate faster, smarter, and with a razor-sharp predictive view of what's to come in the markets, from a trading, marketing and processing point of view."

Under constant pressure to slash costs and boost returns, investment banks are set to replace humans with artificial intelligence. Stamford, Connecticut-based research firm Greenwich Associates thinks investment banks will seek to deploy artificial intelligence across research, sales, trading, and compliance. Already used to detect fraud, deliver credit ratings and provide robotic financial advice in the retail sectors, artificial intelligence could be set to overhaul the way wholesale markets work. Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich, said: "In today's environment of continued cost pressure and low margins in many businesses, investment banks are even more incentivized to reduce costs through automation." "AI and robotic process automation promise to provide just the solution they are looking for," he added in the March 7 statement.

Artificial Intelligence is among the hottest topics in the financial markets today, seeming to promise untold benefits to the major banks that are embracing it, and destruction to traditional asset managers and other victims who get left behind. The truth may be a little different. Indeed, Opimas does foresee myriad benefits coming to financial players in the future from the robots and machines that think and learn and analyse mountains of unorganized data, enabling firms to anticipate and better serve customers' needs. We estimate a 28% improvement in financial institutions' cost-to-income ratio by 2025 as they automate routine processes currently performed by employees. In 2017, we expect financial firms to spend more than US$1.5 billion on AI-related technologies and, by 2021, US$2.8 billion, representing an increase of 75%.