Weekly bulletin from AIport, issue #18

Hello and welcome to the latest issue of our weekly AI bulletin. We hope you enjoy this week’s collection of the hottest AI and data science news from around the globe, arranged chronologically for your convenience. Have a great weekend!

North America:

• Google’s new GenAI feature, unveiled earlier this month in the US, is getting flak from reputable publications for displaying bizarre results, such as recommending eating rocks and putting glue on pizza.

• McKinsey’s data science arm, QuantumBlack, releases its State of AI in Early 2024 report, examining GenAI adoption through a series of surveys.

• Perplexity rolls out Perplexity Pages, a new AI tool that allows users to turn their research efforts into customizable articles.

• Elon Musk’s xAI officially becomes the second highest-valued GenAI startup on the planet, worth $24 billion. 

• A school district in Colorado is utilizing AI technology to tackle major bus driver shortages. 

Europe:

• After proclaiming itself an AI superpower, France, it turns out, requires help from America’s Big Tech to succeed.

• Britain’s Jeremy Coller Foundation announces a new challenge for AI-assisted research teams to “talk” to animals, with a $10 million prize reserved for the competition’s winner. 

• In Switzerland, University of Zürich researchers report 100 times faster detection of pedestrians and road obstacles with novel bio-inspired AI cameras.

Asia:

• Despite increasing demand for AI memory chips, one of the market leaders, South Korea, is witnessing significant shrinkage of its semiconductor stockpiles — the worst in a decade.

• Following Microsoft’s move to invest in Malaysia’s AI sector earlier this month, Google makes a roughly equivalent investment into the South Asian nation’s data infrastructure.

• In China, Tencent launches Oracle Bones Corpus (殷契文渊), an AI-backed platform set to assist scholars in deciphering ancient scripts.

Australia:

• Autonomous underwater AI drones made in Perth are helping marine researchers explore shipwrecks off Western Australia’s coast by providing high-resolution images and 4K videos from hard-to-reach, treacherous locations.