Industry news

The UK and US have signed a new agreement to cooperate on research and development of artificial intelligence.

This agreement aims to drive technological breakthroughs whilst strengthening the countries collective prosperity and national security. 

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Nokia has signed a contract with Britain’s biggest mobile operator, BT, to supply 5G radio equipment after Britain's decision to ban China’s Huawei 5G technology.

This deal will make Nokia BT’s largest equipment provider.

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Huawei has bought shares in Chinese semiconductor and tech companies as the worlds largest telecoms equipment maker supports its supply chain under the current tension with the US. 

The US have implemented trade restrictions with Huawei as they believe there’s a security risk with sharing data to the tech company. Huawei’s investment in other companies comes as the US have restricted their chips being imported. 

The investment is aimed to support their domestic supply chain partners to become more mature. It also supports the Chinese governments efforts to boost their semiconductor sector. They are refocusing on domestic businesses as they have no choice but to invest outside of the company due to the continued restrictions on their goods. 

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The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has signed a £46million deal with Microsoft for the next three years.

The contract awarded to Phoenix Software will provide Defra with their licensing needs. The license services will initially be provided to all the Core Defra entities such as the overall department itself, the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Marine Management Organisation, and the Rural Payments Agency.

This deal comes as Defra tries to migrate away from long-term IT outsourcing agreements with IBM after their 17 year long contract is coming to an end.

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As Accenture sees a decline in a few of their revenue generating sectors it’s predicted that Indian IT companies, such as Infosys might also see some short-term impacts on business.

Accenture announced that they were experiencing a 2% year on year decline in Q4 revenue to $10.8billion. One of the main contributors to this loss is the decline in revenue for consulting.

Although Indian IT companies don’t depend on consulting like Accenture do, they are still experiencing challenges due to the cancellation of projects and customer spending cuts with the uncertainty of the pandemic.

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The IT company Tech Mahindra is in an advanced level with sharing its technology with ITI Limited. They plan to be able to make 4G and 5G equipment in a few months. They are currently undergoing test runs and exchanging designs on the technology they want to manufacture.

In June, Tech Mahindra signed a contract with ITI Limited in order to develop 4G and 5G technology. This partnership is in line with the Indian government’s desire to get state-run companies back into manufacturing high end technology products.

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Mastek and InterWork technology companies have won contracts worth the total of £18million in order to support the NHS technical delivery of the COVID-19 Operational Dashboard.

The Operational Dashboard shows local governments and the NHS what’s happening in terms of COVID-19 in their specific area and the country as a whole. For example, it will show the level of COVID-19 cases, death rates and hospitalisations from the virus.

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The current test and trace scheme in the UK has come under a lot of bad press recently as many people aren’t able to get COVID-19 test when they are required or having to travel miles to get one. 

The test and trace scheme was outsourced to a private company called Serco in May for £108 million. Labour claims that by outsourcing the service the government is a wasting tax-payer money. The test and trace scheme should have been given to the NHS and local authorities to manage instead.

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The UK Fraud Office has charged three former executive of the G4S prison and security company for defrauding taxpayers after an investigation into its electronic tagging inmates scandal.

The electronic tagging scandal occurred after an audit suggested that the firm had been charging for tags on inmates that where either dead, in jail or never tagged in the first place.

The G4S is one of the biggest outsourcing companies in the UK. Both the G4S and its rival Serco have been under investigation since 2013 for the electronic tagging of inmates. In July, the G4S paid a £44 million fine to settle these allegations.

The settlement reached will mean that the company won’t face any criminal charges as long as they improve their corporate governance. 

However, the three former executives of G4S, Richard Morris, Mark Preston and James Jardine have all been charged with seven offences of fraud.

To read the full article you will need to be subscribed to the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/24d34cc9-5721-46e6-8742-e421c6a47f56

COVID-19 has brought to light the crucial role that AI will play in the future in order to fight the current outbreak and others that may come.

There are four main trends that we will expect to see in the future:

Smarter Big Data Analytics and Insights:

With COVID-19 we understand the urgency to analyse and interpret data on the spread of the virus. With AI creating a dedicated search engine we will be able to search through all the COVID-19 related documents in order to analyse the relevant data. 

There’s also ongoing plans to develop AI solutions to deal with the backlog of further medical issues where treatments have been affected as resources are being diverted to help fight COVID-19. 

Automated Detection and Prevention:

Drones are being used in the US to monitor whether people are following social distancing rules. Further plans for drones include the capability to detect COVID-19 symptoms within a group of people and facial-recognition features in order to see if people are avoiding quarantine.

Business on the rebound - predicting behavioural transformation:

Online companies such as Amazon have grown massively since COVID-19. Amazon's sales were up by 40% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. Therefore, companies are urgently seeking to adapt online. Self-service access to technology will become increasingly prevalent throughout 2021.

Shutting down the next pandemic before it can start:

The Toronto based AI BlueDot’s feature issued an alert about a potential outbreak in Wuhan on the 31st of December 2019.  For AI to become more effective and reliable at detecting the next pandemic, a global effort is needed.

Read the full article here - https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/09/21/the-4-top-artificial-intelligence-trends-for-2021/#65d3941c2a07