Intel has announced a total of 117 million U.S. dollars (114 million euros) to invest in fourteen disurptive start-ups through its investment department Intel Capital. The startups work in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), communication, healthcare and production.
The investments expand the company’s strategy to take “strategic positions” in promising startups, by investing between 300 and 500 million dollars per year, reports Silicon Angle.
Four of the startups that are currently being invested in are working on AI. These include Cloudpick, a Shanghai-based provider of smart retail technologies, which has created algorithms for computer vision, deep learning, sensor fusion and edge computing. With these algorithms it should be possible to shop without having to pay at a cash register.
Intel also invests in SambaNova Systems from Silicon Valley. This company builds systems to run AI applications anywhere, whether in a data center or at the edge of the network. The Toronto-based company Untether AI is working on new microchip architectures specifically for neural net inference workloads, which can move data a thousand times faster than regular chips can.
The last startup is Zhihai EEasy Technology. This Chinese company is working on a system-on-a-chip, for tasks such as accelerating AI, processing images and graphics, and encoding and decoding videos.
Communication and health
Investments are also made in four communication start-ups. Mighty Networks is one of them. This company sells experiences, connections and expertise to digital “creators with a purpose”. Pixeom offers an edge computing platform that rebuilds and deploys cloud functionality for on-premise systems.
Tibit Communications specializes in improving broadband connections and the British company Polystream is building software-defined imaging tech to speed up the streaming of interactive graphics.
In the healthcare sector, investments are made in Medical Informatics, which focuses on monitoring and data analytics. The company offers a Sickbay platform, which can collect and monitor data from various medical devices, after which it can better inform doctors about the condition of their patients. Investments are also being made in Reveal Biosciences, which uses deep learning to accelerate medical research.
Production
Finally, Intel invests in four manufacturing companies. For example, Landing AI sells a range of software-as-a-service systems and corporate transformation programs to help manufacturing and agricultural technology companies transform themselves into AI companies.
OnScale has developed scalable engineering simulation software for testing new technologies in IoT, 5G, autonomous vehicles and biomedicines. The Israeli company proteanTecs is developing the Universal Chip Telemetry, which is designed to improve the performance and reliability of electronic systems.
Finally, there is Qolibri, which builds software to increase efficiency in semiconductor factories where computer chips are made.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.