Day: July 10, 2023

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Ambiq Propels Remote Healthcare Monitoring Sector Growth with New Ultra-Low Power Processors

The Apollo4 Lite and Apollo4 Blue Lite System-on-Chips (SoCs) Help Enhance Devices’ Functionalities and Battery Life to Accelerate the Adoption of Remote Monitoring

Apollo4 Lite and Apollo4 Blue Lite: Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

Ambiq introduces Apollo4 Lite and Apollo4 Blue Lite

News Highlights:

  • The new Apollo4 Lite and Blue Lite SoCs offer feature-rich capability, optimized memory, powerful graphics performance, and secureSPOT® for robust security in a lightweight solution
  • Ideal for digital health applications, such as digital stethoscopes, patient monitoring, and continuous glucose and blood pressure monitoring
  • The Apollo4 Blue Lite offers secure Bluetooth® Low Energy connectivity for communication to handheld devices, host equipment, and the Cloud

AUSTIN, Texas, July 10, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ambiq®, a technology leader in ultra-low power semiconductor products and solutions, introduces the Apollo4 Lite and Apollo4 Blue Lite SoC to its expanding portfolio of SoCs for IoT endpoint devices, especially the remote monitoring products of the healthcare sector. This announcement follows Ambiq’s release of its Heart Kit™, an optimized open-source AI model utilizing multi-head neural networks (MH-NNs) to enable a variety of real-time heart-monitoring applications.

The Apollo4 Lite and Blue Lite product line is the latest generation system processor solutions built upon Ambiq’s proprietary Subthreshold Power-Optimized Technology (SPOT®) platform, enabling new features while reducing devices’ overall system power consumption to extend their battery life. Both SoCs are embedded with an ultra-low power Cortex-M4 core that can operate at up to 192 MHz with turboSPOT, an audio subsystem, GPU, and ample MRAM and SRAM. They are also conveniently pin-compatible with Ambiq’s Apollo4 Plus and Blue Plus¹, providing developers with optimum flexibility for innovation.

“Today’s patients are more empowered to monitor and advocate for their own health, and healthcare providers require more data analytics to prescribe holistic treatment,” said David Priscak, VP of Technical Solutions at Ambiq. “With bold graphics and long battery life, state-of-the-art health tracking is now more affordable and accessible thanks to these new additions to our Apollo4 SoC family.”

Apollo4 Lite / Blue Lite Chart

Apollo4 Lite / Blue Lite Chart

“The global remote patient market in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth $53.6 billion in 2022 and is poised to reach $175.2 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 26.7% from 2022 to 2027,” said Ms. Anu Dhiman – Lead Healthcare Analyst – MarketsandMarkets Research Pvt. Ltd. “The predominant factors influencing the growth of the market include the benefits of remote patient monitoring to reduce the burden on medical resources, the monitoring benefits of telehealth and remote patient monitoring services, advancements in telecommunications, as increasing geriatric population, and the growing need to expand healthcare access.”

The Apollo4 Lite and the Apollo4 Blue Lite are designed for extended battery life, advanced security, and powerful graphics in small form factors, which are critical for the continued adoption of these devices. Both are now in mass production, targeting digital health products, smartwatches, fitness bands, animal trackers, voice-activated remotes, industrial maintenance, and smart home IoT devices. For more product information, visit www.ambiq.com/apollo4-lite and www.ambiq.com/apollo4-blue-lite.

¹ – Apollo4 Lite is pin-compatible with Apollo4 Plus (AMAP42KP-KBR); Apollo4 Blue Lite is pin-compatible with Apollo4 Blue Plus (AMA4B2KP-KXR.)

About Ambiq

Ambiq’s mission is to develop the lowest-power semiconductor solutions to enable intelligent devices everywhere by developing the lowest-power semiconductor solutions to drive a more energy-efficient, sustainable, and data-driven world. Ambiq has helped leading manufacturers worldwide develop products that last weeks on a single charge (rather than days) while delivering a maximum feature set in compact industrial designs. Ambiq’s goal is to take Artificial Intelligence (AI) where it has never gone before in mobile and portable devices, using Ambiq’s advanced ultra-low power system on chip (SoC) solutions. Ambiq has shipped more than 200 million units as of March 2023. For more information, visit www.ambiq.com.

Contact

Charlene Wan
VP of Branding, Marketing, and Investor Relations
cwan@ambiq.com
+1.512.879.2850

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British AI Firm, Quantexa, Commits to Over £200M in AI Research and Development Investment by 2027

AI in Context

How Quantexa Augments and Automates Decision Intelligence with AI

Quantexa CEO outlines vision for investment in support of UK Government’s plan to make UK an AI Hub, which includes:

  • £125M in new global investments aimed at accelerating enterprise and government agency’s ability to use trusted AI-enabled Decision Intelligence solutions
  • £85M in dedicated UK investment will create over 170 new jobs in London AI Innovation Centre team
  • Preview of Generative AI assistant shows how world-leading institutions will unlock the full potential of data to investigate risk and identify opportunity

LONDON and NEW YORK, July 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Quantexa, a global leader in Decision Intelligence (DI) solutions for the public and private sectors, announced today that it will invest an additional £125M in the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry over the next three years to help clients advance the use of AI to protect, optimise, and grow their organisations. By 2027, Quantexa’s total global investment in AI will reach more than £200M.

The investment marks Quantexa’s continued advancements in AI with the preview of its Generative AI technology, Q Assist. Quantexa also furthered its commitment to advancing the company’s existing AI Stack to enable its growing global ecosystem of clients and partners to unlock new industry-specific use cases for financial services, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare, and in the public sector. Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence platform and suite of solutions for data management, customer intelligence, KYC, risk, fraud, and financial crime have been deployed in over 70 countries.

Analysis from University of Washington suggests this investment will boost the global AI industry by £600M as the multiplier effect is realised.

AI in Context: How Quantexa Augments and Automates Decision Intelligence with AI

Quantexa Limited

Preview of Generative AI Assistant Breaks New Ground
Built on Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence Platform, the technology preview of Q Assist, a generative AI assistant, demonstrates the potential of using LLM’s to create an intuitive and conversational interface bringing new efficiencies for analysts working with data to identify risks as part of investigations. For organisations, the potential benefit is significant – as the AI assistant allows all analyst staff to become as effective as the most experienced investigators.

Q Assist is LLM agnostic and will allow clients to use their own proprietary, open source, or commercially available models including ChatGPTTM, a leading LLM from OpenAI. Quantexa’s market-leading entity resolution, graph analytics, and scoring capabilities become turbo-charged when they can be queried with natural language questions and prompts in Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence Platform.

Today, in a video showcase, Quantexa demonstrated one of what could become many potential use cases for Q Assist. The financial crime investigation scenario was chosen to show the potential in using natural language to query vast amounts of structured and unstructured data at scale, allowing even junior analysts to understand the complex data behind graph analytics and alerts. The preview also showed the ability to automate the generation of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and investigative summaries – possible in close to 100 languages – driving further efficiency in what is typically a manually intensive process and allowing more time to be redirected to strategic activities.

AI Throughout Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence Platform Delivers Business Value
Enterprises and government agencies are using Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence to become more effective and efficient at organising siloed, messy data to obtain 360-degree views of customers and suppliers to identify fraud, qualify eligibility for services, stop dangerous goods at borders, or optimise supply chains.

Quantexa is using three core principles to responsibly build out its AI Stack:

  • Context-Based Learning: Just as humans require full context to make informed decisions, so does AI. Without context, even the smartest machine learning or deep learning algorithms lack accuracy to be deployed reliably. For example, it’s impossible for a person or AI model to know if a single bank transaction in isolation is money laundering. Quantexa builds true context by using data to create single views of people, organisations, places, and other entities and assembles them visually to show complex interactions between entities. This context is what enables a person or AI to make an accurate decision.
  • Composite AI: Quantexa’s Composite AI Stack aggregates the outputs of many different techniques, including machine learning, natural language processing and deep learning. Combining these with input from subject matter experts, organisations can continually use analytics to improve decisioning to protect, optimise, and grow. Quantexa uses exclusive access to huge volumes of structured and unstructured industry data to train its AI and provides out-of-the-box open models, giving clients the ability to modify or create their own.
  • Explainability and Trust: In the highly regulated environments that organisations work in, it is crucial that decisions are transparent and explainable with no suggestion of bias. Quantexa’s technology and governance uses context-based techniques and composite AI to drive adoption of explainable outcomes without privacy concerns. Quantexa publicly maintains its AI ethics and safety guidelines here.

Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said:
“We want to ensure the UK remains the best place in the world to build, test, and use safe AI technology. Quantexa’s new £85M London AI Innovation Centre will help cement this reality. It will create over 170 jobs, harness the extraordinary potential of AI as we grow our economy, and lead the way on responsible AI development around the world.”

Chloe Smith, Technology Secretary, said:
“The Government is serious about AI, which is why we’ve invested £2.5B in AI infrastructure and skills since 2014 and this year set out our plan for AI regulation to drive innovation and build trust. Quantexa’s investment is a huge vote of confidence in those plans and will unlock new opportunities for growth and job creation, enabling us to continue to pave the way as a global leader in the development of AI.”

Vishal Marria, CEO and Founder, Quantexa, said:
“While many companies are talking about AI and machine learning, we have been investing in it since our inception. We are investing our time, money, and resources into the biggest technological breakthrough for generations as it will transform how organizations make decisions. We’re proud to invest in London-based innovation but the impact will be felt by the global economy and will start a ripple effect that will unlock decision intelligence capabilities for our clients and their respective industries.” 

Dr Oren Etzioni, Professor at the University of Washington’s Computer Science and founding CEO of the Allen Institute for AI, said: “An investment of 100 AI jobs will drive economic growth not just in London but around the world. The places most likely to benefit are AI innovation hubs like New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco. Based on my research into the impact of AI on employment and economic growth, the long-term monetary benefits of this announcement will increase significantly because of the multiplier effect from job creation and innovation. An initial investment of £200M is likely to benefit the wider AI industry by £600M globally within three years.” 

To learn more about how your organisation can benefit from Quantexa’s AI investment, innovation, and ethical practices, please visit here.

About Quantexa
Quantexa is a global data and analytics software company pioneering Decision Intelligence that empowers organisations to make trusted operational decisions by making data meaningful. Using the latest advancements in big data and AI, Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence platform uncovers hidden risk and new opportunities by providing a contextual, connected view of internal and external data in a single place. It solves major challenges across data management, KYC, customer intelligence, financial crime, risk, fraud, and security, throughout the customer lifecycle.

The Quantexa Decision Intelligence Platform enhances operational performance with over 90% more accuracy and 60 times faster analytical model resolution than traditional approaches. Founded in 2016, Quantexa now has more than 650 employees and thousands of users working with billions of transactions and data points across the world. The company has offices in London, New York, Boston, Toronto, Malaga, Brussels, Amsterdam, Ireland, Luxemburg, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, and the UAE. For more information, please visit www.quantexa.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Enquiries
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E: Quantexa@fightflight.co.uk

C: Adam Jaffe, SVP of Corporate Marketing
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E: adamjaffe@quantexa.com
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Secretary-General Condemns Deadly Air Strikes in Sudan

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

The Secretary-General condemns the air strike in Omdurman, Sudan, which reportedly killed at least 22 people today. He offers his condolences to the families of the victims and hopes for a speedy recovery to the dozens of people who were injured.

He is appalled by reports of large-scale violence and casualties across Darfur. He is also concerned about reports of renewed fighting in North Kordofan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile States. There is an utter disregard for humanitarian and human rights law that is dangerous and disturbing.

The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned that the ongoing war between the armed forces has pushed Sudan to the brink of a full-scale civil war, potentially destabilizing the entire region.

He reiterates his call for the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to cease fighting and commit to a durable cessation of hostilities. He also urges these parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law to protect civilians and to enable humanitarian action.

The United Nations continues to push for the cohesion of international efforts under the auspices of the African Union coordination architecture and welcomes the strong engagement of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Source: EMM/ UN

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South Sudan: Returned refugees face a bleak future

Thousands of South Sudanese who had crossed into Sudan since 2012 when war broke out in their country have returned home. They are being settled into already congested camps, for more than 2 million internally displaced persons, that lack basic necessities like shelter, food, and water.

Many cannot return to villages razed by floods in the last four years or destroyed by fighting between different warring factions. Humanitarian organizations caring for the returnees say they are overwhelmed and have called on the international community for more funding. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also said they expect many more people to return to South Sudan in the near future.

Reluctant returnees

In Rubkona County, in Bentiu, Unity State, returnees, mostly women and children, told DW harrowing stories about their flight from Sudan’s conflict and the treacherous journey back home. Aid agencies flew back only a few lucky ones. Most returned by road or water in arduous days-long journeys.

Martha Nyakuma Mawech, 35, left South Sudan in 2013 after her village was attacked. She had to leave some of her family behind. She started a new life in Sudan and had planned to stay.

“I did not think I would return home because South Sudan is still in crisis,” Mawech told DW. “But I spoke constantly on the phone to my family, to find out how they were doing.”

Mawech’s return was fraught with difficulties. She traveled for many days, dodging bullets and death. She did not have enough food and water.

“I can’t find the words to describe the journey home. Many people were shot dead. Some starved to death. Many were trapped in shelters without food. It was hard,” she said.

Samuel Riek Taran, 21, left South Sudan in search of safety. He told DW that he and other refugees were mistreated in Sudan: “They often raped our women and took away those with lighter skin.”

When war broke out in Sudan, Taran met up with a few others to head home.

“We gathered in Khartoum and decided that we had to leave and get our families out. We bought a car, took our things, and went to the border with South Sudan. We sold the car at the border and took a boat,” Taran said. They sailed on the Nile river for six days before reaching South Sudan.

Shattered dreams

Kerbino Kwai Luol, 37, and his wife, 29-year-old Nyabim Gai, fled South Sudan in 2013, at the height of the war between government forces and Riek Machar’s fighters.

After gaining independence on July 9, 2011, South Sudan was embroiled in nearly a decade of conflict along tribal lines between the dominant Dinka tribe of President Salva Kiir and the Nuer of his former rival, now his first deputy, Riek Machar. The fighting between their forces killed around 400,000 people.

“When we arrived in Sudan, we found life was better,” Luol said. “Although we had nothing in the beginning. But as life went on, we managed to settle well, until we were displaced again by the war in Sudan. We had nothing when we left and came back with nothing,” Kerbino said.

In Sudan, menial jobs allowed Kerbino and his wife to save some money to start a small business that could sustain their family.

“I would buy clothes from Sudan and send them to South Sudan, and my contact person in South Sudan would sell the clothes and send the money back to me,” Kerbino told DW. He had some money for the journey back home.

“I had 1.5 million Sudanese pounds (€2,280). I had planned to use this money to help my family during transit. But unfortunately we got robbed by armed men on the way and all the money was taken away.”

Aid organizations overwhelmed

Caroline Nakidde Sekyewa, country director for the International Rescue Committee )IRC= in South Sudan, told DW in Juba that “many refugees are returning to situations where social services, access to food, education, healthcare and hygiene are already constrained.” International organizations are experiencing difficulties in meeting all the needs.

Even before the arrival of the returnees, the flood-affected IDP camps in Rotriak were already facing difficulties, according to a June 2023 report by the OCHA.

Returnees settling in Rotriak have added to the number of people sleeping and living out in the open for lack of shelter, increasing the level of vulnerability of the community, OCHA said.

The IRCäs Sekyewa said that the lack of funds is contributing to the deterioration of the situation.

“The humanitarian response plan is less than 40% funded. The current humanitarian situation needs to be better funded. And then add the Sudan crisis, where we have quite a lot of displacement,” Sekyewa told DW.

More than 7.8 million people in South Sudan are projected to fall short of their minimum food needs in 2023. South Sudan may experience greater widespread hunger and starvation than during its civil war, according to the International Rescue Committee.

Starvation looms

Food insecurity will force more than three out of five South Sudanese to skip meals or sell possessions to buy food. Some 43,000 people face starvation, the IRC warned.

Each day, hundreds of returnees arrive in the north of the country. They come by plane, car, or boat, crossing the flood waters that have recently devastated South Sudan. Once registered in Bentiu, the returnees are taken by trucks to the nearby Rotriak settlement for displaced people.

More than 26,000 South Sudanese returnees have made it to Rotriak so far. But their struggle doesn’t end there.

The relief and rehabilitation director in Rubkona County, William Bakuony, called for more assistance from international partners, because the government didn’t have enough resources to support the returnees.

“They are running away from the war and need many things. Some of them are sick and need assistance with medicine. They need enough food and shelter,” Bakuony told DW.

The onset of the rains could make the situation even worse. The IRC said it hopes to be able “to increase the level of services to the returnees” where it is currently present.

“We might be able to provide some sort of decent, at least humanitarian, response to people who are coming back. But it needs a much bigger response than a humanitarian response,” IRC’s Sekyewa said.

After nearly a decade of conflict, and despite efforts toward implementing the 2018 peace agreement, South Sudan continues to grapple with sporadic violence, chronic food insecurity, and devastating flooding, often affecting progress on the humanitarian front.

Source: Deutsche Welle

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BOU HABIB, UN’S WRONECKA DISCUSS SITUATION IN SOUTH LEBANON

Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Dr. Abdallah Bou Habib, on Monday discussed with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, the situation in south Lebanon and the Israeli enemy’s violations. Discussions also touched on the country’s political and economic situation.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon