Huawei opens AI lab in Singapore
Huawei Technologies has opened a lab in Singapore to provide a testbed for artificial intelligence (AI) development projects, offering access to its cloud and ModelArts AI platforms, amongst others. Located at its local office in Changi Business Park, the facility also runs on a 5G network and includes training sessions and workshops.
Huawei said Friday the lab offered proof-of-concepts, free trials, and offline AI development kits to facilitate research and development efforts in AI. Through the new facility, the Chinese vendor said it aimed to help cultivate a local AI ecosystem as part of Singapore's recently launched national AI strategy.
Huawei added that the opening of the lab included learnings from AI case studies by its customers DIGI and Ulearning, and the signing of five memorandum of understandings (MOUs) with local organisations such as MI Robotic, Navinfo Datatech, OTSAW, and Neolix Technologies, as well as Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company and Shanghai Enfon Robotics Co. Local augmented reality and virtual reality companies, Hiverlab and Hellohold, also were part of the MOUs.
These partnerships would involve development efforts in maritime operations, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and smart manufacturing.
Huawei Cloud's Asia-Pacific CMO Neo Teck Guan said: "We believe AI and its solutions should be accessible to everyone, and that the convergence of AI, cloud, and 5G, lays the foundation of the technology ecosystem for the digital economy of the future."
The Chinese vendor also unveiled its "1+3+n" programme to be delivered through the AI lab, with the aim to nurture 100 AI architects and 1,000 AI developers in Singapore over the next three years. The initiative would focus on three key areas, including information and knowledge sharing as well as consulting and design of an ICT talent skills framework.
Huawei in April launched a https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-cloud-ramps-up-ai-efforts-with-singapore-lab-partners/ to develop local skillsets and offer resources to help universities and enterprises conduct research and build cloud and AI applications. It said then that the lab would provide Huawei's AI services such as research and development robots, development toolkits, and Traffic Intelligent Twins.
In August, it officially released its AI chip Ascend 910, which it said had a maximum power consumption of just 310W -- this is lower than its originally planned specs of 350W. It also announced the commercial availability of its MindSpore AI computing framework, which it said was designed to ease the development of AI applications and improve the efficiencies of such tools.
RELATED COVERAGE
Huawei unleashes AI chip, touting more compute power than competitors
Chinese tech giant announces the commercial launch of its Ascend 910 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, touting its low power consumption of 310W, as well as its AI computing framework MindSpore, which will go open source in the first quarter of 2020.
Huawei Cloud ramps up AI efforts with Singapore lab, partners
Chinese tech giant has opened a cloud and artificial intelligence innovation lab in Singapore with resources to help universities and enterprises drive research in these technologies as well as inked agreements with various companies to jointly develop such applications in Asia-Pacific.
Singapore wants widespread AI use in smart nation drive
With the launch of its national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, alongside a slew of initiatives, the Singapore government aims to fuel AI adoption to generate economic value and provide a global platform on which to develop and testbed AI applications.
Singapore underscores need to build trust as AI continues to evolve
Amidst concerns that artificial intelligence will negatively impact human lives, the Singapore government has advocated the need to build trust and for open industry collaboration so the necessary framework and guidelines can be established to safeguard public safety.
Singapore ramps up AI drive with inter-agency unit
Singapore government announces plan to establish an "inter-agency taskforce" to asses how the country should develop artificial intelligence (AI) as a strategic capability and be a global testbed for the deployment of AI applications.