European Union Seeking to Strengthen Semiconductor Ecosystem

MLCommons, an international artificial intelligence (AI) standards body formed in 2018, launched MLPerf Tiny, their first benchmark targeted at the inference capabilities of edge and embedded devices, or what they call "intelligence in everyday devices". The new benchmark is now part of the overall MLPerf benchmark suite, which measures AI training and inference performance on a wide variety of workloads, including natural language processing and image recognition. The benchmark covers four machine learning (ML) tasks focused on camera and microphone sensors as inputs: keyword spotting, visual wake words, tiny image classification, and anomaly detection. Some important use cases include smart home security, virtual assistants, and predictive maintenance.

At the recent CES 2022 tech event, Japanese corporation OMRON, the world’s leading manufacturer and distributor of personal heart health products and other medical devices, highlighted (and later announced on their website) the activities of their partnership with Kyoto University to develop an AI[1]powered platform that uses remotely gathered patient data to predict cardiovascular diseases at an earlier stage than current averages. Kyoto University is closely tied to the identity of Japan's government and considered Japan's leading research university. They operate a Top500 HPC system on-site in addition to conducting research on the cutting edge Fugaku supercomputer. This new program, part of an ongoing partnership between the two organizations, seeks to explore the use of AI to analyze blood pressure metrics for early detection of cardiovascular diseases faster and with greater accuracy allowing for treatment courses to be changed or taken more quickly.