The Chief Minister for the state of Rajasthan recently approved a proposal to collaborate with leading information technology (IT) companies to develop and deploy training programmes to students in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotics, and virtual learning at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Advanced Technology. According to a news report by The Times of India, Gehlot in the budget announced the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Advanced Technology would be set up in Jaipur for IN₹2 billion (US$26.9 million). The centre will conduct certificate courses and multidisciplinary research on cutting-edge technology and will be used to make the general public aware of new innovations in emerging technologies.
The government aims for the centre to be a high-level institution where the latest information technology training programmes will be conducted for the youth of the state by world-class IT companies. To facilitate and encourage these companies to start their own training facilities in the state, the Chief Minister has approved providing well-equipped training institutes and maintenance facilities free of cost.
Various quality training courses in three categories will be conducted in this institute by reputed IT companies as training partners. The first will be a premium course, which will be fee-based. The second course will be subsidised by the state government, in which 100 children will be selected for each of the training partners. The third course will be based on e-learning and will be free of cost, the course material will also be provided for free.
The AI market in India could grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.2% and reach US$7.8 billion in total revenues by 2025. The country has been heavily investing in developing AI/ML courses and solutions. Last year, OpenGov Asia reported that the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (IISc), in collaboration with a private player, announced it would establish a state-of-the-art AI/ML centre at the IISc campus. Spread across approximately 140,000 square feet, the centre will offer bachelor’s, master’s, and short-term courses in areas AI/ML, deep learning, fintech, reinforcement learning, image processing, and computer vision.
The centre will also promote research and innovation in AI/ML and develop the talent pool from across the country to provide cutting-edge solutions to meet the industry’s emerging and future requirements. According to a statement, as IISc continues to deliver on its mandate to provide advanced scientific and technological research and education, its partnerships with forward-thinking institutions will help it scale up substantially and position India as a deep tech innovation hub.
Another public organisation, the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee (IIT-Roorkee), said it would set up a new school for AI and data science. The course will invite renowned experts in the field of AI to participate in designing relevant curricula as well as faculties and mentors who will encourage innovative research ideas to the students. These experts will also facilitate student scholarships and faculty exchange programmes. AI-driven technologies are rapidly transforming the world. Academic collaborations between international faculty and institutes can help solve ongoing global challenges like climate change, resource sustainability, and information security.
As 5G technology gets fully implemented over the next several years, cellphones and other wireless tech will grow more powerful with increased data flow and lower latency. Millimetre waves carry more information than conventional transmissions do, but they also usefully occupy a portion of the broadcast spectrum that communication technologies seldom use – a major concern in an age when broadcasters vie for portions of the spectrum like prospectors staking out territory.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working to measure the effect trees and foliage have on the millimetre waves 5G transmissions are expected to use. 5G promises lower latencies and increased data flow, but new cell network designers must reckon with the technology’s shortcomings. 5G uses millimetre waves that have limited ability to penetrate obstacles, such as buildings, trees and even inclement weather like rain or snow.
The 5G era will feature wireless communication not only between people but also between devices connected to the Internet of Things. The increased demand for larger downloads by cell customers and lag-free network response by gamers has spurred the wireless industry to pursue speedier, more effective communication.
As wireless communication evolves from primarily a person-to-person exchange to cover a rapidly expanding network of connected devices, cities and carriers that are building out their 5G networks are looking for guidance on how to tackle the issue of interference caused by trees. NIST researchers are conducting tests on seven different types of trees, during different seasons of the year. The leafier the tree, the more the waves lose their strength,
We will be able to do new things if our machines can exchange and process information quickly and effectively. But you need a good communication infrastructure. The idea is to connect, process data in one place and do things with it elsewhere. The tree study is one of the few out there that looks at the same tree’s effect on a particular signal frequency through different seasons. We couldn’t only do the survey in the winter, because things would have changed by summer. It turns out that even the shape of leaves affects whether a signal will reflect or get through.
– Nada Golmie, Head of NIST Wireless Networks Division, Communications Technology Laboratory
The measurements the team made are intended mainly for companies that create models of how different objects affect millimetre waves. The company used the measurement data NIST shared with it to tune the tree simulation models, which cell companies use to plan out their networks of antennas in detail.
NIST’s collaboration with the company contributed to guidance issued by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the organisation that creates guidelines for telecom standards. The results now appear as a new section on trees in ITU’s. This publication serves as a reference for signal propagation models, which others will develop.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is requesting input from the public that will inform the development of AI risk management guidance.
Responses to the Request for Information (RFI), which appeared in the Federal Register, will help NIST draft an Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF), a guidance document for voluntary use intended to help technology developers, users and evaluators improve the trustworthiness of AI systems. The draft AI RMF will answer a direction from Congress for NIST to develop the framework, and it also forms part of NIST’s response to the Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in AI.
The dexterity of a human hand inspired a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has created a reconfigurable hybrid robotics system that’s in a position to grip several objects: from the small, soft and delicate to the massive, heavy and hulking. This technology is predicted to influence a variety of industries, involving meals meeting, vertical farming and fast-moving client items packaging, which can progressively automate extra of their operations within the coming years.
The hybrid robotic grippers use soft, versatile 3D-printed fingers with a reconfigurable gripper base. The robotic innovation is now within the technique of being introduced to commercial companions underneath the staff’s start-up RoPlus (RO+), comprising NUS researchers.
An object’s shape, texture, weight and size affect how we choose to grip them. This is one of the main reasons why many industries still heavily rely on human labour to package and handle delicate items. Our hybrid robotic gripper technology revolutionises traditional pick-and-place tasks by offering advanced capabilities that allow robots to safely interact with delicate items of various shapes, sizes and stiffness, just like the human hand.”
– Raye Yeow, Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering & Advanced Robotics Centre, National University of Singapore
Gripping is likely one of the most typical and pure duties that individuals carry out, however for robots, it isn’t as intuitive. To obtain human-like gripping skills, robots want computer imaginative and prescient and deep studying to detect the kind of objects in entrance of them in addition to their orientation. The gripper can then mechanically resolve on how finest to choose and place objects to reduce the need for intensive human intervention.
To grow robotic grippers that might be as dexterous as human fingers, the NUS staff got here up with hybrid robotic grippers, consisting of three or 4 soft fingers, which may reconfigure on demand. The fingers are air-driven and outfitted with a novel locking mechanism for adjustable stiffness. The NUS staff has developed three sorts of hybrid robotic gripper methods—virtually like three different fingers which might be helpful in several contexts.
The first is GourmetGrip, which is appropriate for essentially the most granular duties like dealing with delicate bite-sized snacks, or meals simply inclined to harm like tofu, and packs them into take-out bins. This soft-handed mode is reconfigurable so that it may possibly accommodate totally different grip poses in addition to several space restrictions
The second kind of gripper is called UnisoGrip, or Universal Soft Gripper, which is the staff’s extra extensively relevant answer. It is designed for dealing with packaged items alongside the meeting line when they’re normally on the last stage of being positioned into bins for delivery and transportation. It can considerably increase its grip vary, and has soft rotatable gripper fingers for delicate grasp, in addition to a vacuum suction cup that permits it to transfer extra awkwardly positioned objects such because the nook of a tote bin.
The third kind of gripper is absolutely customisable, based mostly on the GourmetGrip/UnisoGrip platforms, to adapt to particular shopper wants and space constraints. This method gives a vast number of gripping choices that may deal with objects of various shapes, sizes and packaging supplies.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, NUS has also rolled out recommendations on how society and organisations should approach Artificial Intelligence (AI) in ways that truly promote human interests and well-being. The manifesto “The Road to a Human-Centred Digital Society: Opportunities, Challenges and Responsibilities for Humans in the Age of Machines” advocates an approach that empowers human experiences of competence, belonging, control and well-being. It offers seven high-level recommendations that can guide businesses and policymakers in their pursuit of a Human-centered approach to AI (HCAI).
The National Tax Research Centre (NTRC) is further developing the functionalities of its existing online incentives application portal for investors to allow electronic submissions in the future of reports, enabling the government to better review and analyse the economic impact of investment incentives. In a report to the Finance Secretary, Carlos Dominguez III, the NTRC said the portal, the Fiscal Incentives Registration and Monitoring System (FIRMS), is currently being used by potential investors to submit their applications for incentives in any of the investment promotion agencies (IPAs). Under Republic Act (RA) No. 11534 or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Law, the NTRC serves as the secretariat of the reconstituted Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) and is tasked to craft the application forms of business enterprises who wish to avail of tax incentives.
Dominguez chairs the reconstituted FIRB, with Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon Lopez as co-chairman. As per a press release, Dominguez ordered all agencies attached to the Department of Finance (DOF) to implement their respective digital transformation programmes long before the pandemic. The NTRC launched the FIRMS on 14 June 2021 to comply with the provisions of the CREATE Law. On top of being an application portal, the FIRMS will be used by the IPAs and the FIRB to review, approve or reject, and monitor activities and projects.
The NTRC said that in the future, FIRMS will be able to generate the electronic Certificate of Registration (COR) and Certificate of Entitlement to Tax Incentives (CETI) of approved investments. The NTRC is encouraging existing businesses already receiving tax incentives from the government to also create their accounts in FIRMS. It will soon allow business enterprises to electronically submit their reports on the financial incentives they have received, in compliance with the provisions of CREATE, the NTRC said.
These electronic submissions will enable the government to better monitor, review, and analyse the economic impact of tax incentives. Under CREATE, the FIRB shall conduct an impact evaluation, such as a cost-benefit analysis, on investment incentives to determine the impact of such incentives on the Philippine economy. The CREATE law provided for a three-tiered framework in the grant of incentives to qualified industries under the government’s Strategic Investment Priority Plan (SIPP), which aims to attract high-value, labour-intensive investments that will create more jobs and further sharpen the Philippines’ competitiveness in the global market.
Likewise, under the law, the Board of Investments (BOI) in coordination with the FIRB, the IPAs, and other stakeholders shall formulate the SIPP which will be submitted to the President for approval. Meanwhile, the 2020 Investment Priorities Plan of the Board of Investments (BOI) serves as the transitional SIPP, until such time that the initial SIPP is issued. As proposed by the BOI and approved by the FIRB, activities under the 2020 IPP may be eligible for incentives under the Tier I classification, without prejudice to upgrade to Tiers II or III if qualified under the new SIPP.
China’s growing technological expertise along its digital silk road is expected to set benchmarks for the rest of the world to follow, according to analysts. President of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) started down the digital silk road long before the rest of the world began talking about connected smart cities and technology-driven solutions.
As China continues to expand its digital footprint in sectors as diverse as cloud computing, 5G, surveillance technology and virtual currency, observers see movement in some areas toward Chinese technological dominance.
China is already leading the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, 5G, and quantum technology publications and patents. Data fuels AI development and, thanks to its sprawling surveillance apparatus, China has access to immense amounts of it, so China seems well-positioned to emerge as a leader in this field.
China has already launched the biggest blockchain ecosystem in the world, connected to over 100 city nodes, and was the first country to launch widespread pilots of a digital fiat currency – the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) system. Analysts agree that China has achieved enormous breakthroughs in some future technologies. Advancements in technologies allow China to more efficiently promote the progress of BRI, increase the bonding between China and BRI countries, and push BRI’s hard projects.
How technology will be incorporated into BRI projects will depend very much on the nature of the projects. This will differ among regions and countries.
– Research Associate, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
China’s world-leading fibre optic industry, which is already assisting BRI countries in transforming from traditional to renewable energy supplies. Many countries aligned with BRI are rich in solar energy resources, but “lack the technologies and resources to construct renewable energy infrastructure. Through BRI, China can export advanced renewable energy technologies to BRI countries and Chinese fibre optic enterprises can enjoy local preferential policies, including tax incentives, preferential treatment for equipment imports.
In some infrastructure areas, such as high-speed railway, 5G networks, and ultra-high voltage power grids, China’s standards have become the international standards as everyone else plays catch-up. Therefore, through collaborating with Chinese enterprises, BRI partner countries can adopt the technologies that accord with the most advanced standards in their infrastructure projects.
China’s technological prowess gives it an edge to push BRI’s hard projects, such as renewable energy, transportation, infrastructure, power, and healthcare since in today’s technology-driven world, the digital realm is intimately intertwined with hard infrastructure.
Railways, ports, and electricity grids, for instance, would not be able to operate effectively today without software, sensors, and cybersecurity. China also provides a useful reference for BRI countries with its digital transformation and industrial digitalisation models. Most BRI countries are developing countries and have limited experience in dealing with digital technology but can benefit from China’s digitalisation experiences.
Given that the BRI is primarily a financing/investment mechanism, exporting technology adds a different dimension to the entire BRI assistance package. Most BRI projects have already been dependent on using Chinese equipment and labour, so any kind of tech advancement might just mean higher quality or more efficient projects.
Anything digital will tend to also require a larger investment amount, and“the financial capacity of BRI recipient markets will come into question here as well, especially if these markets are prioritising developing adequate infrastructure to meet their domestic needs first. The best way for BRI partner countries to benefit from China’s technological prowess is to partner with Chinese operators.
While the West has focused too much on profits and not enough on cash flow business and service lines, China is developing technologies to hook their services into supply chains to generate cash flow streams. This business model is relatively more sustainable than the profit-oriented ones.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has signed a decision approving a project to develop the population database and applications for e-identification and e-authentication for the 2022-2025 period with a vision to 2030. Under the scheme, apart from the database and applications, citizen ID cards with electronic chips will serve administrative procedures and online public services supply, socio-economic expansion, and digital citizens development. The project will aid the completion of the ecosystem on connecting, exploiting, and enriching population data and the directions by leaders at all levels. In 2022, the old and new versions of citizen IDs will be integrated, enabling the e-identification of all citizens.
The connection and sharing of data between the national population and tax databases are expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022, while personal paper documents, including health insurance cards, driving licences, job licences, and vaccination certificates, will be integrated into the citizen IDs and the e-identification app VNEID. As per a news report, this year, e-authentication will be used for all information provided on the citizen IDs and VNEID. From 2023 to 2025, e-identification and e-authentication are expected to be applied to all people conducting administrative procedures at a one-stop-shop office at all levels.
Meanwhile, in 2022-2023, the e-identification and e-authentication system will be upgraded, completed, and applied in e-transactions serving socio-economic development. Major measures to implement the scheme include completing relevant legal regulations. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam was assigned to direct the project implementation and settle all relevant matters. A working group on the project implementation will be formed with the Minister of Public Security being the head. It aims to guide ministries, sectors, and localities on realising tasks of the project, making periodic reports to Deputy PM Dam on the results.
With the several digital transformation strategies that the government has deployed, cybersecurity is an increasingly important factor. Over the past few years, the Vietnamese Party and state have issued many policies to ensure information cyber safety and security. These policies and stances have been realised in specific strategies such as the Strategy for National Protection in Cyberspace, the National Border Protection Strategy, the National Cyber Security Strategy, and the Law on Cyber Security.
In December, to meet the increasing requirements of the task of ensuring national sovereignty in cyberspace, the government asked the public security forces to step up security measures by improving the quality of training in information technology and cybersecurity. The government has said it will cooperate with countries, universities, and advanced technology groups in the world to absorb new technologies and experience, ensuring a high standard of cybersecurity is met to combat the growing number of cyber threats.
The Vietnamese Internet economy could reach US$220 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) by 2030, ranking second in Southeast Asia after Indonesia, according to a report. It is forecasted that the country’s digital economy will see a growth rate of 31% this year over the same period last year, reaching US$21 billion. The number of smartphone owners in the country increased from 59.2% in 2018 to 75% in 2021.
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) received a HK$150 million donation from a local foundation to establish the “Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science” (the Institute), marking a major milestone in the University’s innovation and technology development. The Institute will be anchored at the Tech Landmark, headquarters of the HKU InnoTech initiative.
The Institute will be the command centre based at the HKU Main Campus with branches, satellite centres, labs, and institutes in the Mainland, in particular in the Greater Bay Area and the Lok Ma Chau Loop, to facilitate collaborations with local partners in industry, business, government sectors and other research institutions where data is collected. The goal is to establish a premier Institute and attract and nurture the best talents from across the globe.
One of the founders of the foundation stated that technology will play an important role in the future. With all the experts and collaborations across disciplines, it is believed that the Institute can help solve many world problems.
The Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Director of The Institute noted that The Institute will be a world-class data science hub, based in Hong Kong and connected to the University’s Shenzhen Campus in the Greater Bay Area. The three areas of Fundamental Data Science, Explainable AI and Human-Machine Interplays, and Smart Society will shape the research focus of the Institute in the coming years.
The Institute is committed to excelling in critical strategic research directions including:
The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) identified 5G services provisions in 2022 through indigenously-developed devices as a core mission during a meeting to summarise this year’s tasks and directions. Due to certain infrastructure limits, however, the target is just to offer these services to 25% of the national population in 2025. 4G networks cover 99.8% of the nation and 5G technology has been successfully piloted by three major carriers: state-run group Viettel, VNPT, and MobiFone in 16 cities and provinces. These include Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang City, Hai Phong City, Can Tho City, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Binh Phuoc, Thua Thien – Hue, Quang Ninh, Vinh Phuc, Thai Nguyen, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Ben Tre, and Ba Ria – Vung Tau. The country is now technically ready for the official commercialisation of 5G services, a press release has informed.
MIC reported that domestic 5G equipment now ranges from the core, transmission, and access networks. They have been effectively exploited in the piloting schemes. Vietnam has finished installing 5G stations using open radio access network (ORAN) technology with download and upload speeds of 900Mbps and 60Mbps, respectively. This is a major improvement to boost 5G device research and manufacturing in Vietnam to serve commercialization tasks in 2022. Nevertheless, major Vietnamese carriers are still reluctant since the low demands of 5G services from domestic users cannot compensate for their large investment amount. Furthermore, as there is no specific data package during the piloting time, it is not easy for mobile network providers to accurately evaluate real market demands.
MIC Minister Nguyen Manh Hung stated during the recent ITU Digital World 2021 event that Vietnam is calling upon the cooperation of all carriers in the first stage of 5G development in the country, which has been wholeheartedly supported by VNPT. Accordingly, each carrier should cover 25% of the national surface area and allow customers to use its own facilities to reduce investment costs. This will result in full coverage of 5G technology nationwide in just one year. In their piloting periods for 5G technology, Viettel, VNPT, and MobiFone adopted this practice. Therefore, if all agree, this solution to formally commercialise 5G is feasible, with thousands of new shared base transceiver stations (BTS) installed throughout the country.
MobiFone proposed only sharing 5G infrastructure among carriers in remote areas with low demand for the sake of saving costs. Additionally, it is necessary to organise effective propaganda campaigns so that the public supports telecoms development according to regulations, and the Public Telecoms Fund is used wisely for remote areas. An industry expert suggested that presently, as the cost of BTS is quite reasonable, it is a good time to invest in them, along with the reuse of existing telecoms facilities for the 4G technology. The number of smartphone owners in the country increased from 59.2% in 2018 to 75% in 2021. This growth coupled with a high demand of services for mobile devices and MIC’s determination to cease outdated mobile technologies in 2022, it is expected that from 2023, all Vietnamese people will own smartphones making 5G commercialisation an inevitable reality.
