Hexa Food's IoT team has deployed Huawei's ModelArts coupled with the intelligent device Atlas 500 to accurately identify the quality of the chilies it uses in spice blends. The AI can distinguish good chilies from bad, improving production efficiency and the quality of spices available to chefs and homes across Malaysia. Known as the "Kingdom of Spices", Malaysia is a multi-ethnic nation comprising Malays, Chinese, Indians, and the indigenous Orang Asli people. Its diverse culture is reflected in its cuisine, which draws from a multicultural heritage that sees hundreds of spices add flavor to the Malaysian diet. And of these, the colorful, aromatic, and spicy chili powder is a mainstay of many of the nation's signature dishes.

What do Tuscan Chicken, Bourbon Pork Tenderloin and New Orleans Sausage all have in common? They're all new spice mix flavours that have been developed by the world's biggest spice firm using artificial intelligence (AI). But with taste such a subjective experience, can machines really do the job better than humans? And what does this mean for cultures that see spice as a clear token of identity? Spice giant McCormick, which sells spices to consumers but also develops flavours for the food industry, says it spent four years crunching through more than 40 years of flavour-related data, using machine learning to come up with new flavour combinations that human scientists might not have considered. After all, would you have thought of trying cumin on pizza?