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Digital Catapult pairs up with IBM Watson for AI prize

UK digital innovation network Digital Catapult has been announced as the advocate UK partner for a major new artificial intelligence (AI) competition organised by IBM.

The IBM Watson AI XPRIZE is a $5m competition aimed at encouraging teams from across the world to collaborate on projects that utilise AI to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges, including poverty, health and sustainable energy.

As an advocate partner, the London-headquartered Digital Catapult will act as a hub for UK teams competing for the prize, hosting events and meetups and providing a showcase for some of the most promising UK competitors and innovations.

The innovation network will also provide technical experts and mentors for competing teams in the competition, as part of its efforts to support and harness UK innovation in emerging technologies.

Digital Catapult’s Chief Executive Officer, Jeremy Silver, believes that AI is beginning to play a ‘fascinating role’ in everyday life and has the potential to transform society on a ‘grand scale’.

He said: “We are seeing an explosion of really exciting UK AI companies, working on significant development of algorithms in areas like image interpretation and natural language processing.

“If we get it right, the benefits of AI may be deployed to help solve some of society’s grandest challenges. We look forward to sharing all kinds of new learnings from the entries to this exciting competition.”

Interested participants have until 19 January to apply to compete in the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, with successful teams invited to showcase their advancements to a panel of judges.

Ultimately, three winning teams will present their findings onstage at TED 2020 with the potential harness investment for their innovations.

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