Sber Unveils AI Supercomputer as Algorithms Recreate Ancient Olympia, and Other AI News

We aim to inform readers not only about events in the bitcoin industry but also about developments in related tech spheres — cybersecurity, and now the world of artificial intelligence (AI).

ForkLog AI has compiled the most important AI news of the past week.

Russia to Create Around 3 Million AI-Related Jobs

By 2025 in Russia создадут approximately 3 million new AI-related jobs.

According to Kremlin aide Maxim Oreshkin, Russia remains among global leaders in AI development with leading positions in the deployment of the technology in certain sectors. He said the country has everything it needs to preserve these positions and accelerate AI deployment.

AI Laboratory to Open in Zaporizhzhia

At Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic University создадут an artificial intelligence laboratory. The project was launched at the initiative of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

The organisation of the research space and the installation of the necessary computing equipment have already begun, said the Zaporizhzhia regional state administration.

Head of the AI laboratory, Sergey Serdyuk, said students are already conducting scientific developments and studying the possibilities of AI in digital technologies.

Kharkiv to Create AR Sculpture Park

The Kharkiv city administration will allocate more than UAH 1.1 million (about $43,000) for the creation of an augmented reality sculpture park.

According to the tender application, local authorities planned 14 AR artworks, sketches and an overall concept for the space. They also ordered the creation of QR codes, their placement and integration into the urban environment.

On 22 November 2021, an auction will take place to determine the recipient of the tender. The winner will have to complete the works by 31 December 2021.

NVIDIA Unveils AI Developer News

NVIDIA announced a slate of AI-focused innovations at the autumn GTC 2021 conference.

The Omniverse Avatar platform is designed to create interactive 3D characters. It combines speech recognition and synthesis, computer vision, natural language understanding, modelling and recommendation systems.

The company said avatars based on Omniverse Avatar can be configured for a variety of tasks across almost any industry.

For AI model developers, the company introduced the microcomputer Jetson AGX Orin. It is intended for robotics, autonomous vehicles, medical devices and other embedded compute devices.

Jetson AGX Orin is based on the NVIDIA Ampere architecture and can perform 200 tera-ops per second. The device is equipped with Arm Cortex-A78AE CPUs, as well as next-generation deep learning and computer vision accelerators for running several AI applications simultaneously.

NVIDIA also unveiled the Drive Hyperion 8 modular platform for developing fully autonomous vehicle systems. It features 12 cameras and as many ultrasonic sensors, nine radar units and LiDAR. The company said the system offers a high level of functionality and cybersecurity, and provides sufficient resources to build level-4 autonomous driving systems.

Niantic Unveils AR Platform for Apps and a Metaverse

The Pokémon Go developer, Niantic, launched the Lightship platform for creating customised AR apps and a “real-world metaverse.”

The tools enable real-time grid mapping to train devices to recognise surfaces and understand the surrounding topography. The platform also allows building AR apps with up to five players, synchronising their content and interactions.

The Lightship tools are free and available to everyone.

Niantic also announced a $20 million investment fund to back developers who share the company’s vision of building a real metaverse and contribute to the growing ecosystem.

AMD to Supply Meta with New Server Chips for Metaverse Creation

AMD and Meta signed a partnership to supply new EPYC server processors for data centres. The chipmaker’s shares rose about 10% on the news.

The Genoa processors are for general-purpose computing, with 96 high-performance Zen 4 cores built on TSMC’s optimized 5-nanometre process. They are slated for release in 2022.

The Bergamo chips target cloud applications, delivering up to 128 high-performance cores on Zen 4c. Shipments are planned for the first half of 2023.

CEO Lisa Su said the EPYC processors will power Meta’s infrastructure and help build an exaflop Frontier supercomputer.

Sber Unveils AI Supercomputer

The company “Sber” presented the supercomputer “Kristofari Neo” to accelerate AI tasks.

The installation is based on the AI compute platform DGX A100, featuring eight Nvidia A100 accelerators with 80 GB of memory each. The supercomputer houses more than 700 Nvidia Tesla A100 GPUs, delivering a peak performance of 11.95 petaflops.

Access to “Kristofari Neo” is available through the ML Space cloud platform for AI service development and deployment.

Porsche to Develop ‘Digital Twins’ for Cars

Porsche will develop digital twins for vehicles that can predict maintenance needs based on driving style.

Algorithms will analyse sensor data and big data to recommend specific repair services. They will also predict potential failures before they occur.

Digital twins will appear after 2022. To date, the company is testing the technology with about 50% of Porsche Taycan owners (Porsche Taycan). AI monitors the vehicle’s pneumatic suspension for body roll, and if the driver crosses certain thresholds, it recommends visiting a workshop.

In Greece, AI Recreated Ancient Olympia

Microsoft, together with the Greek government recreated Ancient Olympia with the help of AI and augmented reality.

The project enables people from around the world to view the ancient polis from 2000 years ago and explore it via an interactive mobile app. It recreates 27 monuments, including the stadium, as well as temples of Zeus and Hera.

Tourists can also visit the Athens Olympic Museum and, using a Microsoft HoloLens headset, obtain additional information about the exhibits.

Google Develops Algorithm to Find Pet Lookalikes in Portraits

The developers of Google Arts & Culture introduced the Pet Portraits algorithm to search for lookalikes of domestic animals among artworks.

The neural network compares a photo of a pet with thousands of works by Google’s partner organisations.

The feature is available in the Google Arts & Culture app under the Camera section. Users can share pictures or create animations from them.

Major AI Deals of the Week

From 7 to 13 November 2021, AI startups raised over $1.79 billion. Here are the most notable deals.

• The creators of the AI-powered search engine You.com собрали $20 million.
• Blackshark.ai получила $20 million to scale the “digital twin” of Earth.
• Kodiak Robotics привлекла $125 million to expand its autonomous truck fleet.
• Inworld AI собрала $7 million to develop a platform for creating virtual AI characters for metaverses.
• Mantium получила $12.75 million to support a cloud service for deploying large language models in apps.
• VergeSense привлекли $60 million.
• Landing AI собрала $57 million to accelerate product development for finding matches in manufacturing.
• Neatsy.ai привлек $1 million.
• Symbl.ai получила $17 million to accelerate dialog AI services.
• H2O.ai собрала $100 million to back a cloud platform for AI development.

Also on ForkLog:

• Opinion: the metaverse is more dangerous than artificial intelligence.
• In the US introduced a bill regulating recommendation algorithms.
• Media: Israeli forces are using facial recognition against Palestinians.
• Researchers have simplified the process of creating deepfakes.
• The Seoul authorities will create the world’s first urban metaverse.

What to Read This Weekend?

In new ForkLog cards, learn what transformers are, why they may replace recurrent neural networks, how they work and where they are used.

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