Smart City Summit & Expo Introduces AI 50 Campaign to Spur AI Industry

This March, Smart City Summit & Expo introduces the first edition of AI 50 Campaign, which had actively looked for aspiring AI startup founders across the globe over the past several months during the call for public submissions. A total of 36 AI startup companies were selected from 52 submissions around the world. The selected AI startups will be exhibiting at the AI 50 Pavilion, and are invited to participate in a variety of business matchmaking and networking events. The event is expected to boost artificial intelligence development and adoption through interaction with local and international business professionals. Taipei Computer Association, the event organizer, says that the event is aiming to become the largest platform dedicated to artificial intelligence adoption knowledge exchange and networking in Asia. Its mission is to help shape the cluster effect of the artificial intelligence industry, as well as speed up the pace of artificial intelligence diffusion in smart cities across the globe.

The past few years artificial intelligence has begun to achieve its potential by exhibiting its capabilities in a wide range of applications such as facial recognition, auto-piloting, business intelligence, and industrial automation. This shows the technology is reaching its maturity over time. When the artificial intelligence technology is combined with key technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and being applied to the fields of the smart city, it improves local and municipal service delivery. It makes public services smarter and better, and it also creates opportunities to the entire city. To help artificial intelligence pick up its momentum in city applications, 2019 Smart City Summit & Expo is presenting the AI 50 Campaign for the first time. The Campaign seeks to curate 50 AI startup companies to showcase their works, deliver presentations at conference sessions, as well as participate in business matchmaking events. The large scale business matchmaking and networking events this year aim to help city officials and business owners to keep up with the latest developments in artificial intelligence as well as to learn about how to maximize the benefit they bring.

Taipei Computer Association says that the first edition of AI 50 Campaign seeks aspiring AI startup founders across the globe to display in the exhibition. Startups that have been incorporated in the past five years are eligible and welcome to participate. The Association received a total of 52 submissions from over 19 countries, as well as 18 referrals from trusted accelerators and venture capitalists during the public call. The select exhibitors —the 36 AI startup companies from 15 countries —demonstrate not only their impressive innovative solutions and strong technological innovation capabilities but also their abilities to pilot and validate ideas with customers.

It can be observed from the selecting process that companies are evolving from pure technology development companies to AI-enabled solution providers, diving deep into vertical sectors such as healthcare, transportation, and retails. These companies that made the effort to move into new vertical business markets are likely to become a major driving force for the digitization of smart cities.

Taipei Computer Association states that most of the AI startups selected this time have begun to reap business results from artificial intelligence implementations in several smart cities around the world. For example, Aindra Labs, one of the top 10 artificial intelligence startups in India, develops AI-powered video analytics platform for the forestry companies in Chile. The AI-based solution is capable of counting wooden logs by processing the images taken by drones in real-time and reduces human error. The startup is getting investment from top-ranked accelerators in Chile and is visiting Taiwan for the AI 50 Campaign.

Additionally, Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) will showcase their Robotic Aerial Security Solution at the display. CIRC’s Robotic Aerial Security Solution is a unique AI-based solution that can help large-scale manufacturing facilities and industrial parks to save operating cost and increase the security level by creating an intelligent security network. Taiwanese startup firms aetherAI and Soteria Biotech are applying deep learning to medical image analysis, leading to faster and more accurate diagnoses than humans can perform; and thus, achieving the full potential benefits of human-machine collaboration. Further, ioNetwork develops a number of computer vision deep learning applications such as face recognition and radar image detection that can be adopted in corporate security surveillance industry, large medical centers and smart transportation systems. It is becoming one of the rare few profitable AI innovation startup firms. The Canadian startup Nanoprecise develops sophisticated AI algorithms to monitor machine performance based on sound and vibration data collected by a wide network of sensors equipped in the machineries. It can help large power plants establish their preventive maintenance systems, and it can also significantly reduce maintenance costs caused by downtime.

In addition to previously mentioned computer vision applications, Natural Language Processing (NLP) is another highlight at the display. Several exhibitors are using natural language processing to build chatbot services for financial institutions, government agencies, and telecommunications. For example: YOCTOL.AI is developing financial customer services using natural language understanding technology; Moobit is building algorithms that analyze the working atmosphere in an organization from a large amount of social media data; hence, offering valuable insights to business executives when performing human resource decisions. These examples have already led to a successful adoption in various types of business settings.

Taipei Computer Association says that all selected AI startup firms will be exhibiting at the AI 50 Pavilion, giving presentations, as well as introducing their works to city leaders and business executives from home and abroad through the AI 50 Guidebook.