Corporates and innovation

UK competition watchdog probes AI market amid safety concerns

Corporates and innovation, Deep tech, Government and policy, Next Featured / DJ Henderson / May 5, 2023

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Siôn Geschwindt

The UK’s competition watchdog has launched a review of the artificial intelligence market, in an effort to weigh up the potential opportunities and risks of a technology Bill Gates dubs as “revolutionary as mobile phones and the Internet.”

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would investigate the systems underpinning tools such as ChatGPT in order to evaluate the competition rules and consumer protections that may be required. This, the CMA stated, is to ensure the development and deployment of AI tools is done in a safe, secure, and accountable manner.

“It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information,” said CMA chief executive, Sarah Cardell.

The CMA has set a deadline for views and evidence to be submitted by June 2, with plans to report its findings in September.

The announcement comes as regulators across the world tighten their grip on the development of generative AI — a technology which can generate text, images, and audio virtually indistinguishable from human output. Hype around this type of AI has been swiftly followed by fears over its impact on jobs, industry, education, privacy — virtually all aspects of daily life.

In late March, more than 2,000 industry experts and executives in North America — including researchers at DeepMind, computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, and Elon Musk — signed an open letter, calling for a six-month pause in the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, ChatGPT’s successor. The signatories cautioned that “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”

Meanwhile, Dr Geoffry Hinton, widely referred to as AI’s “godfather,” quit his job at Google this week to talk about the dangers of the technology he helped develop. Hinton fears that generative AI tools could inundate the internet with fake photos, videos, and texts to the extent that an average person won’t be able to “tell what’s true anymore.”

And yesterday, former UK government chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told MPs on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee that AI could have as big an impact on jobs as the industrial revolution.

Anita Schjøll Abildgaard, CEO and Co-founder of Norwegian startup Iris.ai, is optimistic that the probe will address some of these fears and “uphold consumer protections and safely progress the development of AI,” she told TNW. Abildgaard also hopes the review will help address the “competitive imbalance” and “lack of disclosure” present in Big Tech’s proprietary data and training models.

However, while the CMA and many others are clearly concerned about the impacts of AI tools developed by firms such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google, Cardell is adamant that the review would not be targeting any specific companies. Rather, she said that the “fact-finding mission” would engage with “a whole host of different interested stakeholders, [including] businesses, academics, and others, to gather a rich and broad set of information”.

Cardell is also clear that the CMA doesn’t wish to stifle the growth of the rapidly emerging AI industry, but promote it, albeit with a few safeguards. “It’s a technology that has the potential to transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth,” she said.

A UK government white paper published in March follows a similar trend, signalling ministers’ preference to avoid setting any bespoke rules (or oversight bodies) to govern the uses of AI at this stage. This differs from the EU which is currently in the later stages of finalising its landmark AI Act — the world’s first AI law by a major regulatory body.

While the EU has been first out the gate, according to a new report by the Centre for Data Innovation, politicians should avoid getting swept up in the “hysteria” and shouldn’t “rush to regulate AI before anyone else does because that likely will bode ill, and lead to missed opportunities, for society.”

Whatever the case may be, the rapid emergence of generative AI has clearly left governments scrambling to figure out if and how to regulate it.

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German chip plant breaks ground in ‘major step forward’ for EU’s semiconductor industry

Corporates and innovation, Deep tech, Government and policy, Next Featured / DJ Henderson / May 5, 2023

Story by

Siôn Geschwindt

Germany’s Infineon has broken ground on its new €5bn semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dresden, less than six months since announcing the project.

Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony yesterday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the construction as a “major step forward” toward the bloc’s goal of boosting its market share in semiconductors.

Europe is currently scrambling to reduce its reliance on foreign imports of semiconductor chips from, among others, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. “These are regions where tensions can flare up at any time,” said von der Leyen, in a nod to the current tensions between Beijing and Taipei. “The slightest disruption to trade would immediately hit Europe’s strong industrial base and our internal market hard.”

The bloc believes that boosting domestic production of the chips — essential components in everything from cars to smartphones — will mitigate the supply shortages that have plagued many of the EU’s vital tech sectors over the past two years.

Under the EU Chips Act, which got the green light last month, the bloc is mobilising €43bn to double its market share in semiconductors from 10% to 20% by 2030. “The capacity will have to be quadrupled, and this is only possible with companies like Infineon,” von der Leyen said.

“With this groundbreaking, Infineon is launching an important contribution to the green and digital transformation of our society,” said Infineon CEO Jochen Hanebeck at the ceremony on Tuesday. “Global semiconductor demand will grow strongly and persistently in view of the high demand for renewable energies, data centres and electromobility.”

A rendering of Infineon’s Smart Power Fab in Dresden which is scheduled for completion in 2026. Credit: Infineon.

Infineon expects production at the plant to start in 2026. The new 300mm fab represents the largest investment in the company’s history, and will add capacity to its current manufacturing site in Dresden.

Other chip manufacturers are also currently investing in Germany. US-based Wolfspeed is investing €2.7bn to build a plant in Saarland, while Intel is building an even larger factory in Magdeburg that will cost €17bn.

While the EU’s chip plans are taking shape, von der Leyen warned that Europe was still too dependent on raw materials from individual suppliers, pointing to the fact that China controls 76% of the silicon metal supply needed for chip production.

To secure raw materials closer to home, she said the bloc is exploring new projects in Europe, but also partnerships with countries such as Australia, the US, and Canada. The EU also recently passed the Critical Raw Materials Act which looks to ensure that Europe secures stable supplies of critical rare earth elements and raw materials.

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This AI-powered exoskeleton does the heavy lifting so you don’t have to

Corporates and innovation, Future of Work, Insider, Investors and funding, Next Featured, Startups and technology / Mike M. / May 4, 2023

Story by

Siôn Geschwindt

Move over Tony Stark, there’s a new player in town. Augsburg-based startup German Bionic has developed wearable exoskeletons that endow superhuman strength — although they are a little more modest than Iron Man’s.

Founded in 2017, the startup is one of several companies around the world developing exoskeletons to make physically demanding jobs easier. Whether for warehouse staff, elderly care professionals, or construction workers, “everyone can benefit from a little added support,” Norma Steller, CPO at German Bionic, tells TNW.

Germanic Bionic’s two commercially available exoskeletons — the Cray X and the recently launched Apogee (pictured) — are worn like a backpack. They are powered by electric motors, and sense when a user is moving, providing up to 30 kg of extra force to your back, core, and legs, when and where you need it.

“When you put on the device it can feel strange and heavy at first,” says Steller — the exoskeletons themselves weigh around 7kg. “But once the motors kick in it feels amazing. You feel strong, tall, and capable — it gives you this kind of feeling,” she said.

norma-steller-german-bionic-CPO-exoskeleton — Norma Steller, CPO at German Bionic (supplied)

These are active exoskeletons: they use battery-powered motors and advanced control systems to enhance human strength, which differs from passive versions that provide purely mechanical support. While active systems are more complicated and expensive — $9,995 a pop for the latest Apogee model — they provide additional support to the lower back, the part of the body that generally takes the most strain from heavy lifting, says Steller.

The units also collect data and alert users to behaviours that increase the risk of injury, such as excessive repetition and improper lifting or twisting movements. Powered by AI, the suits learn your unique individual movement patterns, “supporting you how you need to be supported,” says Steller.

German Bionic has raised almost €45m in funding to date, more than any other European exoskeleton company. The startup predicts that the tech will be used for all manner of applications in just a few years’ time, and could even help the aged or disabled to regain mobility. The Cray X has already been trialled at a hospital in Berlin to help Sara Vaz Contreiraz, a nursing ward supervisor, in her physically intense work in the geriatric ward. “I’ve tried it and I must say I am extremely impressed,” she said.

Sara Vaz Contreiraz, a nursing ward supervisor at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, helps an elderly woman stand using the Cray X exoskeleton. Credit: German Bionic.

There are an estimated 2.7 billion ‘deskless’ workers globally, with many working physically demanding jobs that put the body under serious strain and increase the risk of injury. A comprehensive EU-wide study found that three in five workers experience musculoskeletal disorders, the most common of which is back pain.

The EU workforce is also ageing and grappling with labour shortages, meaning there are more older people in physically demanding jobs and fewer people overall to spread the load — literally. In response, companies are looking for new ways to do more with less and increase the well-being of their workers, with some turning to exoskeletons as a potential solution. But why don’t they just invest in robots instead?

“10 years ago people believed that automation and robotics were a panacea for the labour crisis, but it hasn’t turned out that way,” Steller told TNW. “The reality is that automated solutions are still far more expensive than human labour, and are often inappropriate: most people would not want their elderly parent to be cared for by a robot or for a robot to replace a surgeon, for instance. These physically demanding jobs could, however, be assisted by robotic exoskeletons.”

german-bionics-logistics-exoskeleton — German Bionic’s Cray X in use at Stuttgart Airport, Germany (supplied).

Last year, UK tech retailer Currys invested over £250,000 in a fleet of German Bionic’s Cray X exoskeletons to assist warehouse workers, while in 2021, the UK’s National Health Service purchased 127 units of lower back exoskeletons to help nurses with patient care. German parcel delivery service DPD also uses the Cray X at some of its sites.

“First and foremost, the exoskeletons serve to protect the health of our employees,” says Ville Heimgartner, senior innovation project and sustainability manager at DPD. By protecting their workforce and preventing injury, logistics companies are also expected to see long-term cost savings from reduced claims.

In 2022, there were around 93,000 exoskeletons in use at workplaces across the world, and this number is expected to increase sevenfold by 2030. Despite currently high entry costs, the market is estimated to be growing at 41.3% a year, which will make it a nearly $2bn industry by 2025. By 2030, the revenue from sales of active exoskeletons is predicted to surpass $5bn, nearly twice as much as passive versions.

And there are an increasing number of companies cashing in on this emerging industry. US-based Ekso Bionics has developed an exoskeleton for construction workers focused on supporting the shoulders. French startup Wundercraft has developed a lower body exoskeleton to help patients recover from spinal cord injuries, and Spain’s Marsi Bionics has launched a gait exoskeleton for children with neuromuscular diseases.

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AI ‘godfather’ quits Google and warns of dangers ahead

Corporates and innovation, Deep tech, Next Featured / DJ Henderson / May 2, 2023

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Ioanna Lykiardopoulou

Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainabili (show all) Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainability, green tech, AI, and EU policy. With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.

Dr Geoffry Hinton, widely referred to as AI’s “godfather,” has confirmed in an interview with the New York Times that he has quit his job at Google — to talk about the dangers of the technology he helped develop.

Hinton’s pioneering work in neural networks — for which he won the Turing award in 2018 alongside two other university professors — laid the foundations for the current advancement of generative AI.

The lifelong academic and computer scientist joined Google in 2013, after the tech giant spent $44m to acquire a company founded by Hinton and two of his students, Ilya Sutskever (now chief scientist at OpenAI) and Alex Krishevsky. Their neural network system ultimately led to the creation of ChatGPT and Google Bard.

But Hinton has come to partly regret his life’s work, as he told the NYT. “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” he said. He decided to leave Google so that he could speak freely about the dangers of AI and ensure that his warnings don’t impact the company itself.

In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.

— Geoffrey Hinton (@geoffreyhinton) May 1, 2023

According to the interview, Hinton was prompted by Microsoft’s integration of ChatGPT into its Bing search engine, which he fears will drive tech giants into a potentially unstoppable competition. This could result in an overflow of fake photos, videos, and texts to the extent that an average person won’t be able to “tell what’s true anymore.”

But apart from misinformation, Hinton also voiced concerns about AI’s potential to eliminate jobs and even write and run its own code, as it’s seemingly capable of becoming smarter than humans much earlier than expected.

The more companies improve artificial intelligence without control, the more dangerous it becomes, Hinton believes. “Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now. Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.”

The need to control AI development

Geoffry Hinton isn’t alone in expressing fears over AI’s rapid and uncontrolled development.

In late March, more than 2,000 industry experts and executives in North America signed an open letter, calling for a six-month pause in the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, ChatGPT’s successor.

The signees — including researchers at DeepMind, computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, and Elon Musk — emphasised the need for regulatory policies, cautioning that “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”

Across the Atlantic, ChatGPT’s growth has stirred the efforts of EU and national authorities to efficiently regulate AI’s development without stifling innovation.

Individual member states are trying to oversee the operation of advanced models. For instance, Spain, France, and Italy have opened investigations into ChatGPT over data privacy concerns — with the latter being the first Western country to regulate its use after imposing a temporary ban of the service.

The union as a whole is also moving closer to the adoption of the anticipated AI Act — the world’s first AI law by a major regulatory body. Last week, Members of the European Parliament agreed to advance the draft to the next stage, called trilogue, in which lawmakers and member states will work out the bill’s final details.

According to Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s tech regulation chief, the bloc is likely to agree on the law this year, and businesses could already start considering its implications.

“With these landmark rules, the EU is spearheading the development of new global norms to make sure AI can be trusted. By setting the standards, we can pave the way to ethical technology worldwide and ensure that the EU remains competitive along the way,” Vestager said when the bill was first announced.

Unless regulatory efforts in Europe and the globe are sped up, we might risk repeating the approach of Oppenheimer of which Hinton is now sounding the alarm: “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success.”

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Getir eyes Flink takeover as Europe’s rapid grocery delivery sector consolidates

Corporates and innovation, Fintech and ecommerce, Investors and funding, Next Featured, Startups and technology / DJ Henderson / May 1, 2023

Story by

Siôn Geschwindt

The COVID-19 pandemic was a veritable gold rush for food delivery startups — as the world shut down, people ordered in. These companies promised rapid delivery of groceries from local stores using bikes and scooters, and as demand skyrocketed, investors poured cash into the booming industry.

But now, amid soaring inflation and a post-pandemic downturn, the ‘quick commerce’ market is undergoing rapid consolidation with small companies being swallowed up by a few big players.

Founded in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, German-based grocery delivery startup Flink remains one of Europe’s last remaining independent grocery delivery groups. But that could be about to change: Turkish competitor Getir is in talks to acquire the startup, Financial Times reports.

The talks come just five months since Getir acquired Berlin-based rival Gorillas in a $1.2bn deal that valued the combined group at $10bn, making it Europe’s largest quick commerce company. Getir operates in around 50 cities across seven European countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Portugal.

Parallel to the takeover talks, Flink is looking to raise $100m from existing investors at a valuation of $1bn for the entire company. This is a major departure from mid-2022, when the startup, which is still loss-making, was valued at $5bn.

Despite turbulent economic times and less demand from consumers, the startup’s core German business aims to become profitable by the end of this year. It also has subsidiaries in France and the Netherlands and hopes its overall business will be in the green by the end of 2024.

It is yet unclear how much Getir is willing to pay for Flink. There is no guarantee of an agreement being reached, either, said FT, citing people familiar with the matter. However, an eventual takeover could be streamlined by the fact that Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company holds a stake in both companies.

The merger would further consolidate Europe’s food delivery market, which has seen a number of major acquisitions in recent years. In addition to Getir’s blockbuster buy-out of Gorillas, it also acquired UK’s Weezy and Spain’s Blok in 2021, while US-based Gopuff bought British startups Dija and Fancy in the same year, and Flink acquired French startup Cajoo in 2022.

If the takeover is completed, Getir’s only competition in the European market would be GoPuff, which recently downsized and only operates in the UK and France. This would essentially give Getir a monopoly over rapid grocery delivery on the continent.

While Deliveroo and UberEats also offer grocery delivery, they have a different business model, relying on third-party shops while Getir has its own warehouses or dark stores, which offers a “competitive advantage”, says the company’s CEO. The only other potential competitor is Zapp, but it operates solely in London.

Despite its apparent success, Getir’s place at the top is anything but secure. The company is not yet profitable in Europe, and in May 2022 it has cut 14% of its global workforce, citing soaring inflation. But there is hope that as competition lessens the remaining big players like Getir will be able to cash in on demand for rapid grocery delivery, which still remains relatively high.

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These 19 tech giants are on the EU’s new naughty list

Corporates and innovation, Ecosystems, Government and policy, Next Featured / DJ Henderson / April 26, 2023

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Thomas Macaulay

Senior reporter

Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy. Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy.

The EU’s latest crackdown on big tech is taking shape. The bloc yesterday released a list of companies that must adhere to the strictest rules of the landmark Digital Services Act (DSA).

The 17 platforms and two search engines reach at least 45 million monthly active users. All of them have four months to comply with the full obligations of the DSA.

The services are now mandated to mitigate their systemic risks and establish robust content moderation (this means you, Elon). They range from banning ads that target sensitive user data to special risk assessments for mental health impacts. Violations can be punished with fines of up to 6% of a company’s global turnover.

According to the EU, the new rules are designed to empower and protect people online.

“The whole logic of our rules is to ensure that technology serves people and the societies that we live in — not the other way around,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age.

“The Digital Services Act will bring about meaningful transparency and accountability of platforms and search engines and give consumers more control over their online life. The designations made today are a huge step forward to making that happen.”

Here are the 19 services that have been designated:

The online platforms:

Alibaba AliExpress
Amazon Store
Apple AppStore
Booking.com
Facebook
Google Play
Google Maps
Google Shopping
Instagram
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Snapchat
TikTok
Twitter
Wikipedia
YouTube
Zalando

The search engines:

Bing
Google Search

The rulings are another milestone in the EU’s mission to lead the world in tech regulation. Still, that doesn’t mean the union is above marking the moment with a cringe pun.

“Today is the D(SA)-Day for digital regulation,” said Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market. “The countdown is starting for 19 very large online platforms and search engines to fully comply with the special obligations that the Digital Services Act imposes on them.”

Over to you, tech barons.

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Exclusive: Swiss startup unveils ‘world-first’ AI translation service

Corporates and innovation, Deep tech, Insider, Next Featured, Startups and technology / DJ Henderson / April 26, 2023

Story by

Thomas Macaulay

Senior reporter

A startup claims to have launched a world-first AI speech-to-speech translation system.

The tool, called Aivia, was developed by Interprefy, a Zurich-based provider of translation services. The firm focuses on interpreting meetings and events — a market being turbocharged by globalisation.

As interactions spread across borders, they can become harder to understand. Although English is the language of international business, it’s only spoken by an estimated 17% of the world. The remainder is often excluded from the conversation.

Interprefy supplies a way to remove this language barrier — and the demand seems strong. In the eight years since the company was founded, Interprefy says it’s supported over 50,000 meetings. They range from remote press conferences at the Euro 2020 football tournament to interviews with astronauts at the International Space Station.

Aivia was designed to expand this client base. At the touch of a button, the service translates speech into audio and captions in real time. Interprefy claims it’s the first-ever advanced automated speech translation service for online and live events.

“Many organisations and events lack the budget to book professional interpretation.

Oddmund Braaten, Interprefy’s CEO, has grand ambitions for Aivia. He wants the tool to finally make simultaneous translations mainstream.

“Over the last eight years, our remote interpreting technology has helped democratise access to these services greatly and has seen wide adoption, especially during the Covid era,” Braaten tells TNW.

“But we’ve still seen many organisations and events lacking the budget to book professional interpretation. That’s why we developed a service that provides affordable real-time translation as well as the flexibility and support needed to ensure a seamless multilingual user experience.”

Braaten is bullish about the results. He believes Aivia is the most accurate and flexible AI speech translator on the market.

Oddmund Braaten, CEO at Interprefy — Braaten was promoted from COO to CEO at Interprefy last year.

Under the hood, Aivia integrates three main AI technologies: automatic speech recognition, machine translation, and synthetic voice generation.

To enhance their outputs, Interprefy built a benchmarking toolkit to evaluate the best AI for every language combination. The company also uses a glossary extraction tool to further customise Aivia for each event. This preps the system with relevant keywords and hard-to-catch names or abbreviations from pertinent content.

According to Braaten, this approach addresses two shortcomings in real-time speech translation: inconsistent results and the needs of event organisers.

“We believe we’ve solved both pain points,” he says. “Because we’ve been supporting events of all shapes and sizes for nearly a decade, we have the expertise to support event organisers hands-on. We’ve also built a solution that can benchmark leading AI solutions to use only the best-performing AI technologies available on the market.”

Initially, Aivia will be available in 24 languages and regional accents. Both in-person audiences and platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and ON24 can use the service.

Interprefy plans to add many more languages in the near future — and with good reason. Globally, an estimated 30% of internet users now use online translation tools every week — but real-time speech interpretation remains a challenge. Aivia offers a new solution to the problem.

Aivia arrives amid rapid advances in AI translation. Last year, an Italian interpretation company predicted that machines will surpass the top human translations by the end of the decade.

Naturally, the progress raises concerns about the future prospects for the profession. Braaten argues that AI and humans can play complementary roles.

Only skilled linguists, he says, can translate the subtleties of context, tone, humour, and idioms. Furthermore, they’re the only safe option for sensitive content.

“Interpreters have the unique ability to adapt their translation to every scenario, as well as being able to paraphrase and interpret non-spoken information such as body language and tone of voice,” says Braaten.

“These are qualities that AI simply cannot replicate and are especially important for higher-level communication such as board meetings, legal meetings, or diplomatic conversations.”

AI, meanwhile, is better suited to situations in which nuance is rare and risks are low. In these scenarios, machine translations can provide a more affordable and practical alternative.

Yet for live events and meetings, simultaneous interpretation remains a niche service. Braaten hopes Aivia’s accessibility can change that.

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Dutch startup to build floating solar array at North Sea wind farm

Corporates and innovation, Investors and funding, Next Featured, Startups and technology, Sustainability / DJ Henderson / April 25, 2023

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Siôn Geschwindt

A Dutch startup has been awarded a contract to install floating solar panels at an offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

Oceans of Energy secured the contract from CrossWind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco. The renewable energy startup has been tasked with building a 0.5MW floating array between wind turbines at the 750MW Hollands Kust Noord wind farm, located 18.5km off the coast of the Netherlands.

According to the startup, which was founded in 2016 by Dutch engineer and entrepreneur Allard van Hoeken, this would be the first offshore solar farm in the world to be connected, installed, and operated within a wind farm in “high-wave conditions”.

The solar panels will be situated in between the offshore wind turbines, providing backup power on sunnier but less windy days. The panels will be moored to the wind turbines and connected to the same cables, transporting energy efficiently to end users.

Van Hoeken says the project “will function as an example for combined offshore wind and solar parks in the future.”

The solar array will provide energy for around 500 households once it links up to the Dutch electric grid in 2025, two years after the wind farm comes online.

Until now the startup has mainly relied on subsidies from the Dutch government, of which it has raised €20m to date. Financial details of the new contract with CrossWind, however, were not disclosed.

Oceans of Energy’s pilot floating solar array located 15km off the coast of The Hague has successfully survived years of storms and rough seas. Credit: Oceans of Energy.

Oceans of Energy built a slightly larger array in 2019 which it has been using to test the technology and its ability to withstand some of the roughest seas on Earth. The rig is still operational despite being hit by some pretty severe storms over the last few years.

Researchers from Utrecht University have closely monitored energy production at the pilot array, located around 15km off the coast of The Hague, at a testing zone known as the North Sea Farm.

“In addition to removing the problem of a land shortage, there are several other benefits to building at sea, similar to those in wind energy,” solar energy expert Wilfried van Sark at Utrecht University, who is involved in the project, told Reuters. “There is more sun at sea and there is the added benefit of a cooling system for the panels, which boosts output by up to 15%,” he said.

According to Dutch research organisation TNO, 200 gigawatts of solar power is expected to be generated in the Netherlands by 2050, 25 of which will be on inland waters and 45 at sea. This is expected to open up many opportunities for Oceans of Energy and other budding startups like SolarDuck, a Norwegian-Dutch venture that is currently building an even bigger floating solar array in the North Sea.

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Scania and Northvolt develop battery for electric trucks with 1.5 million km lifespan

Corporates and innovation, Investors and funding, Next Featured, Startups and technology, Sustainability / Mike M. / April 25, 2023

Story by

Siôn Geschwindt

Heavy truck manufacturer Scania and emerging EV battery powerhouse Northvolt have developed a battery for electric trucks that they say will last as long as the vehicles themselves — about 1.5 million kilometres.

The lithium-ion battery is the product of a five-year partnership between the two Swedish companies that began in 2017. At the time, Scania was on the lookout for more robust, cost-efficient, and sustainable battery cells for its heavy-duty trucks and buses — and Northvolt was poised to deliver.

“Northvolt’s mission to build the world’s greenest batteries perfectly matched Scania’s purpose to drive the shift towards sustainable transport,” said Scania’s CEO Christian Levin in a statement.

The lithium-ion cell was produced at Northvolt’s Ett gigafactory in north Sweden, which opened last year and runs entirely on renewable hydro and wind power. As a result, the partners estimate the battery has a carbon footprint of approximately one-third that of a comparative industry equivalent.

The cell’s long lifespan also makes it one of the most durable and long-lasting batteries in the electric vehicle industry. Most EV batteries on the market today are only estimated to last between 150,000-300,000 km.

“At the outset of this partnership, Northvolt and Scania agreed to an ambitious timeline for the development of a high-performance battery cell which would enable their plans for electrifying heavy transport,” said Peter Carlsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Northvolt. “To have proceeded through extensive development and validation phases, and now be delivering cells from Northvolt Ett which exceed our initial expectations in terms of performance is a tremendous accomplishment for everyone involved.”

northvolt-ett-gigafactory-sweden — Northvolt’s Ett gigafactory in Sweden’s icy north made Europe’s first ever domestically produced lithium-ion battery in 2022. The factory, which employees around 500 people, covers an area three times the size of the iconic Pentagon building in the US. Credit: Northvolt

Northvolt will start mass production of the truck batteries at its Ett gigafactory imminently. Over the next few years, Northvolt aims to increase capacity at Ett to 60 GWh to supply clients like Volkswagen, BMW, Volvo and, of course, Scania.

In addition, Scania will open a new battery factory in Södertälje, Sweden, next year, where Northvolt’s battery cells will be assembled into battery packs for the start of production of heavy-duty electric trucks. Developing long-lasting batteries is seen as an important milestone on the company’s electrification roadmap, which aims for electric vehicles to make up 50% of sales by 2030.

Other automakers in the EV heavy vehicle space include Tesla, which is developing an electric semi truck imaginatively dubbed ‘Tesla Semi’, and Volvo, which is already distributing its electric trucks to customers throughout Europe. Swedish startup Einride, considered a competitor to the Tesla Semi, is taking the tech a step further with its plans to roll out fully autonomous electric trucks.

While electric heavy vehicles only made up 0.6% of sales in Europe last year, accounting firm PWC predicts that they will account for one-third of all truck sales in Europe by 2030, and 70% by 2035, due to tightening regulations on fossil fuel-powered vehicles and the falling costs of cleaner alternatives.

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How travel businesses can leverage generative AI solutions

Corporates and innovation, Future of Work, Startups and technology / Mike M. / April 25, 2023

Story by

Singapore Tourism Board

Everyone is talking about the potential of generative AI as buzzworthy tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E make the headlines. But just what is generative AI and is there actually a use for these tools within the tourism sector?

First of all, it’s important to note that, although ChatGPT is one of the most popular examples of generative AI on the market right now, there are many examples of tools employing this technology. Second, while the adoption of AI in general has been growing, this technology represents a new leap forward. Generative AI is seen as a breakthrough within the AI space because it goes beyond simply identifying and categorising past data, and uses this information to create original content.

For example, DALL-E and Midjourney have taken the design world by storm, being able to generate unique images in just a few clicks.

Generative AI has also helped to improve chatbots. Rather than spitting out simple, formulaic answers, this technology can analyse customers’ queries at a deeper level and generate more personalised responses, increasing both accuracy and response rate.

One important misconception to keep in mind is that these tools are not necessarily free. For example, while a free version of ChatGPT is available, OpenAI (the company behind the tool) recently introduced ChatGPT Plus with unlimited access and additional features for businesses which costs $20 USD a month. Other generative AI ventures, from advanced chatbots to generative design layouts, will likely include a price tag from the startups and design firms employing this technology. However, if used early and strategically, generative AI could help give your business a leg above the competition.

Let’s dive deeper into the specific opportunities this technology could present to the tourism sector including improving customer experience, reach, security, and more.

Leverage generative AI to transform venue design

One way the hospitality, MICE, and attractions industries can leverage this technology is by taking advantage of its generative design capabilities to come up with new layouts and concepts, and design for specific needs like security or minimising congestion.

Whether you want to redesign your hotel lobby to increase foot traffic to the spa and other amenities or you have a sustainability-focused redesign in mind, these smart tools can be used as a jumping off point. By inputting parameters such as square footage, location, target audience, and style, generative AI can be used to automatically create multiple design options for a hotel’s interior and exterior.

By analysing behaviour and purchase history, this tech can create dynamic customer segments.

MICE and attractions planners can also use this technology to design layout concepts that are optimised to encourage traffic flow and minimise congestion or security risks. Using generative AI can help professionals be more time and resource efficient, automating certain aspects of the planning process, while providing a variety of event and attraction design options with visitor demographics and venue characteristics in mind.

Virtual tours can also be developed using generative AI, creating immersive and interactive experiences for potential guests, attendees, and visitors in significantly less time. For example, imagine being able to explore a hotel’s facilities and amenities online before booking.

Generative design studios are just taking off in Singapore. For example, Digital Blue Foam was one of the first that launched a web-based interactive generative design tool in December 2021. Both Nanyang Technological University and Singapore University of Technology and Design are also offering courses in generative design, signalling this trend is only set to grow in the future.

Deliver better service with human+AI collaboration

Chatbots have already entered the scene providing answers to customers’ frequently asked questions in no time, but sophisticated generative AI tools are now helping to take this a step further. Rather than simply answering prepopulated queries, chatbots can now serve as a pocket guide able to provide customers with personalised itineraries, travel tips, and more throughout their trip.

The heightened level of personalisation is something that enhances the experience for customers and saves staff time, especially when dealing with shortages. Generative AI chatbots can also be programmed to respond in a customers’ native language streamlining accessibility for international guests.

In addition to catering to customers’ needs, these tools can analyse data from past interactions and generate deeper insights for a business’ long term strategy. This is beneficial for revenue management, helping businesses optimise their pricing, develop new revenue models for the future, and even automate dynamic pricing to offer relevant rates for customers.

For example, generative AI is being used to advance predictive customer segmentation. By analysing patterns in past behaviour and purchase history, this technology can more accurately create dynamic customer segments. Going beyond this, it can also use this information to come up with personalised offers and other upselling opportunities.

All in all, a human still needs to operate and moderate it.

One company experiencing the success of human+AI collaboration is TUI. Their new AI customer assistant, Louise, has a 95% opt-in rate with around 500-600 customers using the service monthly. Hosted by Netherlands-based startup Zoey, Louise offers an empathy-driven Whatsapp service that utilises AI alongside human expertise. Unlike other chatbots, when asked a question from a customer, Louise searches an extensive database to provide the best personalised recommendations and answers.

Brit Haarmans, Innovation Lead at TUI says, “it feels like talking to a friend, and I think that’s the benefit of using agents in combination with AI.”

With its package holidays, TUI provides physical representatives at its various resort and hotel destinations, however this isn’t offered for other product lines like its city trips. Haarmans explains, “we wanted to add value to our holiday products where we are less present in the customer journey.” With Louise, it’s as if customers have a representative with them at every step of their trip.

Every morning Louise will proactively offer tips for the day based on the traveller (if they’re on a family or work trip for example). Users can then interact with the chatbot saying, “Instead I’d like to go to the beach, do you have some tips for me?” Or, “Today I’d like to visit these attractions, can you give me some background and booking information?” It also connects to Google Maps, and some excursions are directly bookable via Louise, making things even smoother for both the customer and the agent.

Keep in mind that humans will always be needed

While generative AI represents an exciting new frontier of opportunities, the most important thing to remember is that it’s not a replacement for human staff, but a helper. Human prompt generators and moderators will always be needed.

When it comes to using AI chatbots, Haarmans advises: “It takes a lot of time to train AI, especially if you want it to answer in a personalised way.” An AI can’t sense the emotion or undertone in a message in the way a human can, so humans continue to be essential in moderating responses. TUI has a team who moderate and edit Louise’s responses and also feed in additional information when needed to provide more accurate results.

The same goes for predictive design. While generative AI may be able to put out a number of different and exciting layouts in seconds, it’s still likely that it can miss important considerations that haven’t been included in the prompt. For example, creating a perfectly sustainable, modern, and congestion free hotel lobby, but forgetting to include restroom facilities in the layout.

An AI solution might be able to give you answers quickly but, all in all, a human still needs to operate and moderate it, and ultimately make business decisions based on the information it gives them.

All in all human-AI collaboration can provide the best of both worlds: the precision and intel gathered from the AI, along with the empathetic, personalised touch of a human moderator.

Are you ready to explore the possibilities that generative AI has to offer your business, but don’t know where to start? Tcube provides consultancy and prototyping services to help you create a digital roadmap and test new ideas. Reach out to us via the Tcube interest form if you have a question: https://go.gov.sg/tcubecommunity

This article was originally published on Singapore Tourism Board’s Tcube website.

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Swedish startup wants €1.5BN to build emissions-free steel plant

Corporates and innovation, Government and policy, Insider, Next Featured, Startups and technology, Sustainability / DJ Henderson / April 24, 2023

Story by

Siôn Geschwindt

Swedish startup H2 Green Steel has announced its plans to raise more than €1.5bn in equity funding to build steel plants that emit virtually no emissions.

The startup, backed by high-profile investors such as Mercedes, Maersk, and Spotify’s chief executive, is constructing a ‘green steel’ manufacturing plant in Boden, north Sweden.

Construction of the plant will be financed through more than €5bn in debt and equity. The startup said in October that it had received support from European financial institutions for €3.5bn in debt financing, making it one of the most capitalised climate tech projects in Europe.

H2 Green Steel confirmed today that it is now in the process of securing the remaining €1.5bn equity funding and is working with advisers from Morgan Stanley, Financial Times reports.

Traditionally, steel is made by combining iron ore with coke (a type of coal) at extremely high temperatures. The burning coke produces carbon monoxide, which converts the iron ore into ‘pig iron’ — the basis of steel. The only problem is, when the coke burns it produces a lot of CO2. In fact, the steel industry as a whole is responsible for an estimated 8% of global CO2 emissions.

H2 Green Steel looks to decarbonise steelmaking by replacing coke with ‘green’ hydrogen (hydrogen produced using renewable energy). Hydrogen reacts with the iron ore to create pig iron — but without the emissions. The only by-product, the startup says, would be water vapour.

An artist’s impression of the green steel plant in Boden. The startup hopes the plant will produce 5 million tonnes of green steel by 2030. Credit: H2 Green Steel

The hydrogen itself would be made in an electrolyser at the Boden site. The electrolyser would be powered by renewable energy, including hydropower from the Lule River and nearby wind farms. Overall, this process is predicted to slash steelmaking emissions by 95%.

If successful, the Boden plant will be the first large-scale green steel plant in Europe, with its products used to construct everything from cars and cargo ships to buildings and bridges. The startup expects to roll out the first commercial batches of its steel by 2025 and aims to produce five million tonnes of green steel a year by 2030.

However, global annual steel production is currently around 2,000 million tonnes, according to figures from the World Steel Association. This would make the production capacity of the Boden plant a mere “drop in the sea,” Ms Lund Waagsaether, senior policy advisor at the Brussels-based climate think tank E3G, told the BBC.

But the Boden plant isn’t the only one of its kind in the pipeline. H2 Green Steel has already signed an agreement with Spanish company Iberdrola to build a plant powered by solar power on the Iberian peninsula. Hybrit, another Swedish company, hopes to open a fossil-free green steel plant by 2026 in a joint venture with mining operator LKAB, Nordic steel company SSAB, and energy company Vattenfall. GravitHy plans to open a hydrogen-based plant in France in 2027, and German steel giant Thyssenkrupp recently said it aims to introduce carbon-neutral production at all its plants by 2045.

These projects are set to boost Europe’s domestic production of green steel, and could soon have political backing too. The EU is in the process of finalising the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a strategydesigned to make it more expensive for European companies to import cheaper, non-green steel from other parts of the world.

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UK-based DeepMind merges with Google Brain in transatlantic AI tie-up

Corporates and innovation, Deep tech, Insider, Next Featured / DJ Henderson / April 21, 2023

Story by

Thomas Macaulay

Senior reporter

Alphabet has merged the UK-based DeepMind and US-headquartered Google Brain into a single AI research unit. Imaginatively named “Google DeepMind,” the new group unites two camps that had developed an internal rivalry.

“Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in AI,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a Thursday blog post.

The new unit will be led by Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind and a UK government AI advisor. Born in London, Hassabis is a former child chess prodigy who finished high school two years early and co-created the Theme Park video game when he was 17.

After earning degrees in computer science and cognitive neuroscience, Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010. Four years later, the company was bought by Google for a reported £400m (€452m) — the Big G’s biggest European acquisition yet.

In his new role as CEO of Google DeepMind, Hassabis will lead the “development of our most capable and responsible general AI systems,” said Pichai.

Joining Hassabis at the new unit is Jeff Dean, who co-founded Google Brain. Dean will serve as Chief Scientist at both Google Research and Google DeepMind, and report directly to Pichai.

“Working alongside Demis, Jeff will help set the future direction of our AI research and head up our most critical and strategic technical projects related to AI, the first of which will be a series of powerful, multimodal AI models,” said Pichai.

The AI competition

The merger comes at a turbulent time for Google’s AI efforts. Despite rearing a raft of research breakthroughs, the company has been shaken by the explosive emergence of OpenAI. The November release of ChatGPT reportedly led Google management to issue a “code red” about the tech giant search engine business.

To add insult to injury, ChatGPT is based on an architecture developed by Google Brain — the transformer. OpenAI acknowledges this influence in the name of its vaunted family of large language models: generative pre-trained transformers (GPT).

DeepMind, meanwhile, has made remarkable advances in computational biology and reinforcement learning, but its commercial impact has been less conspicuous.

By combining the two research units, Google hopes to convert the science into products and services.

The move has already received support in DeepMind’s home country. In the UK, government officials were quick to welcome the merger.

“This is a big development,” tweeted Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. “It sounds very techy, but Google has just merged its two artificial intelligence research units into one… based in the UK. There is going to be lots of competition and a long way to go, but this is a significant step.”

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