Entity Information - Bitly

Artificial Intelligence Detecon Trend Radar Report San Francisco March 2018

Fore more: visit detecon-radar.com

1

detecon-radar.com

Detecon Trend Radar

This report is an excerpt derived from the Detecon Trend Radar, our “single source of truth” for scouting the latest technology trends, opportunities and startups

The Detecon Trend Radar harnesses Detecon’s global trend and startup knowledge to empower clients to innovate proactively and successfully. This report includes selected trends from the Detecon Radar. For more information on this and many other trends please visit : detecon-radar.com

7 Categories

> 400 Trends

2

> 600 Startups

detecon-radar.com

Detecon Trend Radar

Artificial Intelligence is poised to have a transformational impact on core processes and business models in the coming decade Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the way organizations operate as a result of the ongoing trend towards automated solutions and continued technical improvements in computing engines. With the aggressive growth of data produced by the Internet of Things (IoT), businesses are turning to AI applications such as machine learning or deep learning to process and derive insights from this information. This can allow for data-driven and autonomous operations that can boost productivity across the organization through better informed decision making. Although AI has immense potential to disrupt and streamline business operations, high capital investment, workforce resistance, and ethical concerns surrounding black swan events have slowed adoption. This report includes a snapshot of some of the most relevant AI trends and startups from our Detecon Radar, your “single source of truth” for all current and future AI threats and opportunities.

3

detecon-radar.com

Machine Learning (ML) Machine learning is a set of algorithms used to make a system “artificially intelligent,” enabling it to recognize patterns from large datasets and apply the findings to new data. Machine learning can be used to train computers to understand and analyze human language, including text and voice (Natural Language Processing / NLP), to identify and analyze images (image processing and computer vision), or for time series analysis, among other things.

Trend Inspirations

Trend Description Machine Learning is a field where computational methods use experience (past information) to improve performance and make accurate predictions. The capability to learn enables an artificial intelligence to improve and adapt itself to new and unexpected situations. Without this capability, an AI would not be able to develop over time. ML has successfully been applied to different problems, e.g., Text Classification, Natural Language Processing, Image Analysis. It builds the foundation of every modern AI system. Any application areas where data is available and a learning or prediction problem exists (e.g., Robotics, Economics, Biology and Medicine, Physics and Astronomy, Computer Vision).

Trend Rating

The Rainforest connection project uses old cell phones to detect illegal loggers in the Amazon rainforest. They have now partnered with Google to apply machine learning algorithms to detect sounds such as gunshots to better protect the rainforest. Applying machine learning has helped Instagram reduce cyberbullying and trolling by pinpointing inappropriate words and phrases in comments while prioritizing posts with which users more likely interact.

March madness: Google Cloud and NCAA have teamed up and challenged machine learning developers to predict the correct outcome of the Basketball Championships tournament with a $100,000 prize pool.

Course of Action

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Showcased startup

Act Now

Accelerating ML & Analytics Computing CEO: Rodrigo Liang

Employees: 60

Facebook Followers: N/A

Founded: 2017 in Palo Alto, CA

Funding stage: Series A

LinkedIn Followers: 130

Industry: IT

Total Funding (USD): 56m

Twitter Followers: N/A

Technology

Startup Description SambaNova Systems is a computing startup focused on building machine learning and big data analytics platforms. Their software defined analytics platform enables optimum performance for any ML training, inference or analytics models. Founded in 2017 in Palo Alto, it emerged from stealth mode in March 2018, just after closing a $56m Series A venture capital round. SambaNova is the product of technology from Kunle Olukotun and Chris Ré, two professors at Stanford, and led by former Oracle SVP of development Rodrigo Liang, who was also a VP at Sun for almost 8 years.

Startup Rating

SambaNova Systems develops hardware for building machine learning and big data analytics platforms. Its software-defined analytical platform provides optimum performance to machine learning training or inference models and uses hardware innovations to increase its computing power. SambaNova looks to create a new platform from scratch that is optimized for the lightweight mathematics GPU’s have become popular for. Through that SambaNova hopes that it will be able to outclass a GPU in terms of speed, power usage, and even potentially the actual size of the chip.

Course of Action

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Act Now

Selected Investors: Walden International, GV, Redline Capital Management, Atlantic Bridge Capital Startup Inspiration The flexibility of our technology enables us to build a platform providing tremendous benefits for machine learning. Picture source: SambaNova

Kunle Olukotun – CTO

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Robotic process automation (RPA) is the automation of high volume routine business processes with "software robots" which perform defined tasks and processes automatically across applications. These tasks often include repetitive, standardized and transaction processes in key corporate functions.

Trend Inspirations

Trend Description Robotic process automation (RPA) leverages the power of software robots, which can be programmed to perform basic tasks across multiple software applications, to manage the processing of common business transactions. The software mimics the actions of employees responsible for carrying out a task within a given process. The RPA software is designed to reduce the need for employees to complete repetitive and simple tasks since the software robot is able to complete these tasks more efficiently and accurately. Typically RPA is implemented in key corporate functions which involve repetitive, standardized and transactional processes and activities such as Finance, Compliance, Treasury, and Marketing.

Trend Rating

EnableSoft, an early innovator in the RPA space, has announced a global expansion initiative (Foxtrot Alliance EMEA distributorship) to bring RPA closer to businesses without a need for deep engagement with IT.

YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank, has applied RPA to help eliminate the requirement of documents submission for import / export payments. This is expected to reduce the turnaround time of payments by 80%.

Course of Action

Park Outsourcing firms are utilizing RPA as administrative assistants to limit repetitive tasks, help meet compliance standards, reduce outsourcing costs, and scaling to meet growing business demands.

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Showcased startup

Act Now

Building Intelligence for Robots CEO: Scott Phoenix

Employees: 55

Facebook Followers: 1,901

Founded: 2010 in Menlo Park, CA

Funding stage: Series D

LinkedIn Followers: 2,486

Industry: Robotics

Total Funding (USD): 138m

Twitter Followers: 2,489

Technology

Startup Description Vicarious is working towards developing artificial general intelligence for robots. Founded in 2013 in Menlo Park, CA the quickly gained the attention of technology legends, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos who are all among the Angel investors of Vicarious. The company claims that their model can train faster and generalizes more broadly than other traditional AI approaches.

Startup Rating

Vicarious is an artificial intelligence company that uses the computational principles of the human brain to build software that can process visual information, think and learn like a human. The Company builds a unified algorithmic architecture to achieve human-level intelligence in vision, language and motor control. Vicarious' focus is on visual perception problems such as recognition, segmentation and scene parsing. Vicarious eventually plans to build a generalized intelligence, which can be applied across numerous applications.

Course of Action

Selected Investors: Khosla Ventures, Samsung Venture Investment, Wipro Ventures, ABB, Formation 8, Zarco Investment Group, Open Field Capital, Initialized Capital, A-Grade Investments, Good Ventures, Founders Fund, Felicis Ventures, LeFrak, Zeroth ai, AME Cloud Ventures, Faridan, Samsung NEXT, Bezos Expeditions, Data Collective, The OS Fund

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Act Now

Startup Inspiration Vicarious is building a single, unified system that will eventually be intelligent like a human. Picture source: Vicarious

Scott Phoenix – CEO

Quantum Computing Quantum computing takes advantage of quantum-mechanical phenomena (e.g. superposition and entanglement) to perform operations on data.

Trend Inspirations

Trend Description Quantum computing is a technology that will have a tremendous impact on the overall computing landscape. Currently, most computers use binary computing systems to perform calculations (the state is either 0 or 1). Removing the current restrictions on states and allowing chips to switch between different states more rapidly will improve calculation speeds exponentially. Quantum computing is based on the number of quantum bits that can be in superpositions of states, thus allowing it to have more than the 2 states associated with standard computing. As the number of qubits (quantum bits are units of information) increases, the potential acceleration in computing power over traditional systems increases exponentially.

Trend Rating

In March 2018, Google presented the development of its latest 72qubit quantum chip. Google states that its new 72-qubit quantum processor, dubbed “Bristlecone”, will be the chip that reaches the “quantum supremacy” milestone.

Researchers from USC have used quantum computing to boost machine learning. Using a quantum computer has made machine learning more accurate by separating noise from data to confirm the appearance of rare Higgs bosons, the “God particle”. An MIT team has provided unique visibility into the spread of information in large quantum mechanical systems - information is physical, meaning quantum-level sharing of information underlies the universal tendency toward entropy and thermal equilibrium.

Course of Action

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Showcased startup

Act Now

Cloud-based Quantum Computing CEO: Chad Rigetti

Employees: 86

Facebook Followers: 120

Founded: 2013 in Berkeley, CA

Funding stage: Series B

LinkedIn Followers: 2,327

Industry: IT

Total Funding (USD): 69.5m

Twitter Followers: 4,833

Technology

Startup Description Rigetti Computing is a full-stack quantum computing company. Founded in 2013 in Berkeley, CA the startup went thorugh the Y combinator start-up accelerator program. To build a successful quantum computing product, Rigetti has a long way to go but currently it is the most promising competitor for technology giants Google and IBM. Rigetti Computing was recognized by X-Prize as one of the three leaders in the quantum computing space, along with IBM and Google. MIT Technology Review named it as one of the 50 smartest companies of 2017.

Startup Rating

Rigetti Computing is building a cloud quantum computing platform for artificial intelligence and computational chemistry. It designs and fabricates quantum chips, integrates them with a controlling architecture, and develops software for programmers to build algorithms for the chips. Products include Forest, a cloud-computing platform; and Fab-1, a fabrication lab to create 3D-integrated quantum circuits. Rigetti opened up private beta testing of Forest. Forest emphasizes a quantum-classical hybrid computing model, integrating directly with existing cloud infrastructure and treating the quantum computer as an accelerator.

Course of Action

Park

Selected Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Vy Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Y Combinator, Western Technology Investment, AME Cloud Ventures, Lux Capital, Streamlined Ventures, Susa Ventures, Founders Fund

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Act Now

Startup Inspiration On a mission to build the world’s most powerful computer. Picture source: Rigetti Computing

Chad Rigetti – CEO

Context Recognition Context Recognition is a process that identifies real-time information from sensory data, using pattern recognition, signal processing, and machine learning algorithms.

Trend Inspirations

Trend Description The capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will improve exponentially if AI is able to perceive, interpret and understand complex information from the physical real world as most AI processes depend on the quality and volume of information that can be gathered. Context Recognition is the underlying driver of development for a variety of AI topics which depend upon the machines being able to understand the physical environment (e.g. cognitive loops in agent-based systems and robotics where the machine is required to follow the "Perceive – Reason – Act" loop). It can also be applied in any area that requires contextual information to be gathered from the physical world (e.g., human activity recognition, autonomous driving, and robotics).

Trend Rating

In January 2018, researchers at NIST built a superconducting switch that learns like a biological system and can connect processors and store memories in future computers – A breakthrough in artificial brain’s biggest weakness, context recognition. South Korean Internet giant, Naver, announced the launch of ConA, an artificial intelligence platform that automatically recommends travel destinations overseas. ConA has the ability to read data on the web to extract the most useful information.

Microsoft is going beyond the concepts of image recognition and machine learning to make artificial intelligence smarter, and building systems that can read text, comprehend the context behind it and even ask and answer questions.

Course of Action

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Showcased startup

Act Now

AI for Autonomous Vehicles CEO: James Peng

Employees: 44

Facebook Followers: N/A

Founded: 2016 in Fremont, CA

Funding stage: Series A

LinkedIn Followers: 774

Industry: Automotive

Total Funding (USD): 112m

Twitter Followers: N/A

Technology

Startup Description Pony.ai is a company developing an autonomous driving technology platform. Founded in 2016 by James Peng and Tiancheng Lou, it is focused on building a level four autonomous car that is restricted to more predictable environments such as college campuses, industrial settings, etc. In January 2018 it raised $112m in a Series A venture capital round. In February 2018, it became the first company to operate an autonomous ride-hailing service on public roads for public users in China.

Startup Rating

Pony.ai is designing both hardware and software components including its own operating system and is in the process of forging partnerships with car manufacturers with which it plans to design cars for autonomous driving. Pony.ai’s fully self-developed software algorithms enable a vehicle to accurately perceive its surroundings, predict what others will do, and maneuver itself accordingly. The team is deeply passionate about bringing the latest breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence to the future of transportation.

Course of Action

Selected Investors: Morningside venture Capital, Legend Capital, Sequoia Capital, IDG Capital, Legend Star, Puhua Capital, Polaris Capital, DCM Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Silicon Valley Future Capital

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Act Now

Startup Inspiration I believe Pony.ai holds the most promise in delivering L4 technology to the mass market. Picture source: Pony.ai

Wenji Jin – MD of Legend Capital

Deep Learning Deep Learning is an area of machine learning that uses ranks of processors formed into layered neural networks to enable computer systems to learn from huge amounts of data.

Trend Inspirations

Trend Description Deep learning (DL) is the process of using artificial neural networks that learn to represent information and to quickly find structure within large datasets of text, images, and sound. Basically, it enables systems to learn from massive data. It is a biologically inspired learning approach based on the human neuron. Essentially, it is an area of machine learning that uses ranks of processors formed into layered neural networks to enable computer systems to learn from huge amounts of data, 5-20x faster than previous. Various DL architectures have been applied to fields such as computer vision (Facebook Face Recognition), automatic speech recognition (Apple Siri), and natural language processing (GoogleNow, Amazon Echo, Google Home).

Trend Rating

Clinicians could save time and improve their diagnostic accuracy when deep learning is applied to echocardiography. Deep learning can improve workflow, the completeness of studies, and doctors' ability to interpret data decision making.

A new deep learning approach developed by an international team of researchers moves to disrupt the ride hailing industry by predicting demand patterns for taxis / ride sharing services.

A new artificial-intelligence tool developed at UC San Diego deploys a highly efficient form of deep learning to diagnose eye diseases from medical images. The convolutional network requires drastically less training than comparable models.

Course of Action

Park

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Showcased startup

Act Now

Build AI applications without any coding CEO: Eric Xing

Employees: 69

Facebook Followers: 217

Founded: 2016 in Pittsburgh, PA

Funding stage: Series B

LinkedIn Followers: 1,027

Industry: Healthcare, Fintech

Total Funding (USD): 108m

Twitter Followers: 367

Technology

Startup Description Petuum endeavors to provide an Omni-source, Omnilingual, and Omni-mount platform that serves the full spectrum of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications. Founded in 2016 in Pittsburgh, it has recently closed a Series B funding round in which they won the (financial) support of investment giant Softbank. Petuum empowers organizations to create AI/ML solutions that are correct, fast, scalable, and consume minimal computing resources. Together with its clients and developers, Petuum enables verticals such as healthcare decisionmaking, autonomous pilot, anomaly detection and risk management, and beyond.

Startup Rating

The Petuum development platform and gallery of AI building blocks work with any programming language and any type of data, allowing managers and analysts to quickly build AI applications without any coding, while engineers and coders can further re-program applications as needed. Its platform can be used to realize a wide spectrum of AI/ML technologies, such as Regression Models, Deep Learning Models, Graphical Models, Kernel and Spectral Methods, Parametric and Nonparametric Bayesian Methods, Tree and Ensemble Methods, using state of the art algorithms based on optimization, Monte Carlo, and matrix & tensor algebra.

Course of Action

Park Selected Investors: Northern Light Venture Capital, Tencent Holdings, Oriza Ventures, Softbank, Advantech Capital

Wait & See

Observe

Be Prepared

Act Now

Startup Inspiration We are trying to create very standardized building blocks that can be assembled and reassembled like legos.”

Dr. Eric Xing - CEO

The Detecon Trend Radar Element Title

14

detecon-radar.com

Detecon Radar

An Overview of all Relevant Trends and Startups in One Tool Browse through all trends, technologies and startups with an impact on your corporate environment.

15

detecon-radar.com

Powered by

Detecon Radar

Dynamic Data Visualizations Visualization of trends, technologies, centers of gravity and fields of action.

Centralized Scouting and Monitoring Collaborative identification, selection, structuring and evaluation of trends and technologies.

16

detecon-radar.com

Powered by

Detecon Radar

Collaborative Evaluation Collaborative evaluation and selection of relevant trends and technologies.

Import and Export PDF, Excel, PowerPoint.

17

detecon-radar.com

Powered by

Detecon Radar

Startup scouting offering Curated information on all current startups to provide partnership or solutions options

18

detecon-radar.com

Powered by

About Us Element Title

19

detecon-radar.com

About Detecon

Detecon is the leading consulting company that unites management consulting with great digital technology expertise.

We merge business & technology perspectives into a consistent digital change journey for our clients. Industry | Services | Telco    

More than 20.000 projects realized worldwide 1.200 associates in our offices worldwide Clients in more than 165 countries Colleagues from over 40 countries

20

detecon-radar.com

Contact

Thank you Philipp Schett Managing Consultant San Francisco, CA (USA) Mobile: +1 (415) 316 3389 Email: [email protected]

Daniel Steinfeld Consultant San Francisco, CA (USA) Mobile: +1 (415) 373 2591 Email: [email protected]

21

detecon-radar.com