“Effective IT teams demonstrate open-mindedness and inquisitiveness. While we all love a reliable methodology that works, IT teams should be wary of getting too comfortable with regimented systems. As time goes by, there will always be a better, faster way of doing things, and IT teams must be completely comfortable with finding ways to challenge the status quo.” – AJ Abdallat, Beyond Limits
Discover how Asia Pacific’s manufacturing powerhouses are revolutionizing the industry with smart manufacturing and Cognitive AI. In a recent article published in Smart Manufacturing Today, Leonard Lee, President of APAC of Beyond Limits, highlights the opportunities and challenges faced by manufacturers in embracing AI technology. From boosting efficiency and reducing expenses to improving decision-making capabilities, this article provides valuable insights into how Cognitive AI can provide a competitive advantage in the manufacturing sector.
“Cognitive AI acts as a ‘glass box,’ providing detailed justifications for its suggestions by illustrating evidence and risks with clear audit trails. By combining the best features of technology and existing human expertise, stakeholders can trust Cognitive AI during critical decision-making processes, bridging the gaps and delivering the best results.” – Leonard Lee, President APAC, Beyond Limits.
Read the full article- HERE.
Will the novelty of ChatGPT wear off anytime soon? Microsoft certainly doesn’t think so. In February 2023, the giant went all in on ChatGPT-4 and integrated it with Bing. An over-reliance on AI-powered text generators, however, often proves unreliable and potentially dangerous if not used wisely. Humans are often left in the dark about how AI derives its conclusions, which is a major roadblock to the wider adoption of these technologies.
The murkiness of ChatGPT’s answers leaves diligent users at its mercy: Do they take the AI at its word to save time? Or do they conduct their own background research to fact-check the program, thus erasing all the potential time saving of asking ChatGPT in the first place?
Outsourcing tasks to generative AI-run technologies such as ChatGPT can lead to a slippery slope of dubious results.
Models that devour data aren’t sustainable. The best way to practically apply AI in the industrial or energy sector is to have it draw from an extensive, but focused, knowledge base. For example, instead of scrunching mountains of valuable processes within the brains of a few brilliant employees, those experts should disseminate their knowledge into an organized knowledge base. It’s essential that these knowledge bases are understandable to everyone in the organization, not just data scientists who are adept at parsing dense data. This way, with the assistance of AI, anyone can solve complex industry-specific problems quickly.
AI’s industrial applications are meant to save time and free humans to work on value-added tasks that only humans can complete. When humans must constantly double-check the work of an untrustworthy AI, it defeats the purpose of employing AI. Confidence in every piece of data within a carefully curated knowledge base, in addition to reviewing reasoning paths, is an important element of a trustworthy AI tool.
The ever-pervasive topic of debate concerning AI is how much it can replace jobs and tasks typically undertaken by humans. In the near future, the role of AI will center on assisting and enhancing certain tasks under roles that require more creative and strategic acumen. Conversely, roles that are relatively more administrative and repetitive are a better fit for full automation due to the low risk and predictiveness they carry.
The apprehension towards AI and how it poses a threat to jobs should ultimately shift to the certainty that AI is not a threat to your role—what could threaten your role is a person with similar qualifications as yourself but deftly uses AI to elevate their performance. When working harmoniously side-by-side with humans, AI enhances human creativity. There will always be a place for humans in the workforce because of our ability to reason.
Imagine ChatGPT as a black box. You input a query, the program selects the “most relevant” bits from billions of pieces of data, and an answer appears on the page. This process leaves many users hesitant to take the answer and run. They don’t know if the AI’s line of reasoning is sound. Alternatively, explainable AI solutions that provide a clear audit trail are easier for humans to trust and adopt in the long run. Explainable AI is a glass box, meaning that it solves the ambiguity of non-explainable AI outputs. Even if the answer is incorrect, humans can view the path, see where the program went awry, and fix the solution to be better next time. Additionally, viewing the path could inspire new creative ways of thinking about the problem at hand.
According to Beyond Limits Data Science Director Mike Krause, ChatGPT “isn’t even close” to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). “While ChatGPT-4 is undoubtedly more advanced than its first iteration, ChatGPT doesn’t have a semblance of intelligence. It’s basically a glorified data retriever.”
One of the biggest concerns of using generative AI platforms is the security and privacy issues they raise. With an over-dependence on them to do all the leg work, users are overlooking the fact that they are willfully feeding it information that could be confidential and sensitive. And with the way, AI is increasingly evolving to autonomously act on information, who knows what the repercussions of that may be?
On a more malicious scale, ChatGPT can act as an aide to cyber criminals. From going as far as writing functional malware to facilitate phishing and spam emails, the tool is evidently a double-edged sword that does harm as much as it adds value.
ChatGPT’s straightforward use cases are fueling the media frenzy still buzzing around the application. At this point in its development, mostly high school essay procrastinators and mindless marketing clickbait are benefactors of the technology. Engineers in the energy and industrial sectors cannot rely on existing generative AI programs. The stakes are too high to trust outputs generated by a machine that does not offer insight into how it arrived at its conclusions.
Beyond Limits creates solutions for industrial AI systems, allowing everyone– from data scientists to engineers, to admins– to optimize their current operations at scale. Beyond Limits dismantles the “black box” of traditional AI models and always displays an easy-to-understand path that led to explainable answers. In fields where human health and safety are on the line, trust an AI solutions provider with data transparency at its core. We also understand the sensitivity of all information and thus protect our client’s data by adhering to state-of-the-art data privacy, security standards, and uptime across all storage and deployment scenarios, including cloud or private cloud.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BEYOND LIMITS COGNITIVE AI AND EXPLAINABLE AI SOLUTIONS.
In recent years, the global talent war has started, and competition for talent is white-hot. To learn from experience, Recruit specially sent staff to Sin Chew to interview local scholars and business leaders, etc. From this we analyzed the economy and manpower strategies of the Lion City for several consecutive periods, including blueprints of local economic and industrial transformation, attracting international talent policies, various visa programs, etc.
As the main force for the economy and talent, how do enterprises cooperate with Sin Chew’s innovation and development? In this issue, we continue to visit companies in Sin Chew, inviting managers to share the reasons why international technology companies have settled in the region. Some digitization promoters also pointed out the strategy of the Collective Action Alliance of Sin Chew political and business organizations, hoping to bring inspiration to Hong Kong’s economic and human development.
Singapore’s promotion of economic digital transformation can bring together forces from all walks of life to innovate together and create a unique cooperation model. The Combined Action Alliance established by the government and the industry connects stakeholders to expand opportunities. PwC Singapore (PwC Singapore) digital business and risk and control partner Greg Unsworth is an expert in digitalization in Singapore. He has participated in projects in different industries and has a deep understanding of the collaboration of all sectors of the local community.
Originally from Australia, Greg Unsworth joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) after graduating from a university in Australia. His career development started with auditing, and he later dabbled in technology, media, and telecommunications consulting work. He then became a digital expert, mainly assisting clients to promote technology transformation. He likes to explore new things and has worked in Australia, Britain, Japan, Africa, and other places, but he settled in Singapore in 2003.
Said with a smile, he has established his business in Singapore, and his children have grown up there. Apart from the clean city appearance and safe environment, there is another important factor that attracts him to Sin Chew. “Singapore is an interesting place. Especially after 2003, the trend of digitalization began to sprout and continue to grow, bringing many development opportunities. Working here, I have witnessed many interesting changes.”
What is the change that makes this technology push very interesting? He took out his mobile phone, pointed to the application program on the screen, and said: “This program is called Singpass, which can handle almost all government services. This is a very practical and meaningful digital development.” Singapore launched a digital identity authorization system in 2003. Singpass (Singapore Personal Access) was later built into a mobile application, which now connects 3.5 million citizens, permanent residents, and other authorized users to 2,000 government and business services.
Unsworth said that in promoting the application of technology in Singapore, the government often takes the lead and provides practical support. “The support I’m talking about is not just providing funding, but carefully examining the needs of industry transformation, formulating long-term plans, and continuing to implement.” The Singapore government formulated transformation blueprints for 23 key industries in 2016, including construction, logistics, nursing, financial services, catering, retail, food manufacturing, etc. Each industry sets four strategies: innovation, digitalization and productivity, talent training, and internationalization. In addition, to gather strength to drive transformation and transformation, the Singapore government has also established a unique public-private partnership model and established the “Alliances for Action” (Alliances for Action) with the industry to collaborate on innovative solutions.
At present, there are seven action alliances in the local area to carry out innovative projects in various fields, including digitalization of the supply chain; sustainable development of the environment; digitalization of the built environment; smart commerce; robotics; safe and innovative tourism experience; and educational technology.
As a technology promoter, Unsworth has assisted different industries in digitalization. His most memorable experience in recent years is his participation in the Singapore Trade Information Sharing Platform (SGTraDex) project, which was initiated by the Support Chain Digitalization Alliance. “Aiming at the pain points of the supply chain industry, we will establish new solutions with industry players and government agencies.” He said that the problems faced by the logistics supply chain in the past include insufficient transparency of information and data, and the need for manual processing of some processes, resulting in increased costs and reduced overall freight efficiency. To improve the situation, the action alliance connects government port management departments, shipping companies, commodity traders, energy companies, etc. This group jointly develops the SGTraDex platform applicable to the entire supply chain ecosystem, shares data from different links in the supply chain, and assists the industry to optimize cargo handling and operations processes.
Unsworth said that participating in the various tasks of the project, such as establishing systems, coordinating stakeholders, and ensuring data security, faced many challenges, but it also gave him a deeper understanding of the Sin Chew Model – “Government, industry, individuals, everyone is moving towards the same goal and facing the future with more confidence.”
He further said that almost all industries in Singapore have also undergone digitalization in recent years. “Digitalization is now an essential strategy. Without technological innovation, it is difficult to compete in the market.”
Singapore is a world-recognized pioneer in the development of smart cities. The government has repeatedly taken the lead in the application of technological innovation services. Taking Singpass launched in 2003 as an example, it has continuously strengthened its functions and gradually built it into an application. It can be used in various government services, such as making appointments for medical consultations, borrowing books from public libraries, collecting passports, applying for public housing “HDB” and collecting keys. In the absence of mandatory regulations, almost all local citizens and permanent residents (97%) have Singpass accounts.
Enterprises implement digital transformation. In addition to deploying technological equipment, people’s thinking also needs to change simultaneously. Practitioners need to have a lifelong learning attitude to keep pace with the times. In Singapore, companies also take on the important task of training. For example, PwC launched the Your Digital Future program to provide digital skills training for 3,500 local employees and partners and established the Digital Innovation Office to encourage employees to implement innovative ideas. “The training is designed for all colleagues to help them master various technologies and data analysis tools. In addition to improving skills, the training also drives a change in mindset, so that colleagues are more confident in the face of future technological changes and can continue to add value through continuous learning.”
Why did an AI technology company that participated in the US mission to explore Mars go all the way to Singapore to set up its Asia-Pacific headquarters? The answer is not as esoteric as rocket technology, but simple enough to be found at your local Hawker Centre. Sidney Lim, Managing Director of Beyond Limits in Singapore and Southeast Asia said, “Because cooked food stalls are also at the forefront of technological transformation, they are members of the digital economy ecosystem. A thriving digital ecosystem is a foundation for the development of technology companies. The application of technology not only starts from the industry but also goes deep into the community. Society has a considerable degree. The digitization of digital technology can move towards AI.” .
Beyond Limits is an American technology company that originated from NASA’s Mars exploration project. The robot Curiosity sent to Mars that year was equipped with the company’s AI system. In addition to entering space, Beyond Limits also develops various industrial-grade AI solutions for applications in medical, manufacturing, finance, energy, and other industries. The company settled in Sin Chew in 2020 and established a regional headquarters.
Lim said that there is considerable flexibility in importing overseas experts to Singapore. “For example, we hired a quantum computer technology expert from Finland earlier, and the visa application was approved within a short time after submission.”
Lim revealed that the company settled in Singapore three years ago because of the development of local science and technology, which can bring opportunities for AI applications. He said that it is not difficult at all to understand the technology business opportunities in Sin Chew, if you go to the cooked food center, you can see that there is little knowledge. “You can see that many merchants use digital technology. The owner may be an elderly man in his 70s, but he has never lagged in applying technology to business. There is a QR code in the restaurant. Customers can order food through the online system and pay electronically and check out. The development of high technology is not achieved overnight. Society needs to build an ecosystem to promote the digitalization of various industries. Singapore has been quite successful in this regard, which is also a place that can attract talents and enterprises to settle in one of the reasons.”
He also said that because the government vigorously promotes the application of technology and penetrates different levels of society, Sin Chew can attract many technology companies to settle in the area. “Singapore has a unique feature, the government can connect and coordinate different agencies so that everyone can move towards the same goal. Taking the application of technology in cooked food stalls as an example, the government has recruited different suppliers, including customer management systems, mobile applications, electronic payment systems, etc., to cooperate to build an application solution. Shop owners only need to participate in the plan, there are ready-made solutions available and can receive support and funding, which is much more effective than shop owners looking for solutions in the market alone. There are also many plans in Singapore to help various industries transform. It’s an attractive environment for technology companies.”
“The Beyond Limits team regularly organizes various activities to promote work-life balance, which is also one of the ways to attract talent.”
Lim said that a thriving digital economy ecosystem is especially important for AI technology
companies to promote their business. “Because AI is a high-end technology, its application, and R&D must have basic supporting facilities. First, industries and enterprises implement digitalization to master data. When the database becomes more mature, AI can be used for various in-depth and predictive analyses and diagnoses. Therefore, As the economy transitions to digital, AI applications and demand will also increase.”
He continued that in Singapore, AI solutions have great potential for application, especially Beyond Limits as a cognitive AI technology (cognitive AI). In the face of some unknown factors, it can still use a decision-making model that is close to the thinking of the human brain to produce streamlined and effective results. Efficient solutions can be used across domains in numerous industries. “For example, we have cooperated with the Japanese chemical company Toagosei to provide an AI solution for equipment maintenance, which can comprehensively analyze various data to make a diagnosis and perform predictive maintenance for equipment. This is preventive maintenance that can be performed before a failure occurs, i.e., maintenance and repairs to improve operational efficiency.”
Lim said that the Singapore government plays an important role in promoting the development of technology and talents. “Governments can often take the initiative to foresee future trends and make long-term and forward-looking deployments, instead of waiting for trends to come and be hit head-on, helpless.”
With the continuous development of the company’s business, the demand for talent is increasing. “I joined Beyond Limits in April 2020 as the company’s first employee in Singapore. Later, the company’s business continued to grow, expanding to Malaysia, Japan, and even mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Today, the team in the Asia-Pacific region has 200 people.” He said that the company not only imports talent from overseas but also actively cultivates local talent. “We have the Beyonders Internship Program for people from different backgrounds, such as university graduates or those looking for a career transition. In Singapore, they can participate in the company’s technology projects around the world and work with top experts. They have the opportunity to officially become an employee.”
Singapore promotes the development of science and technology, from the country, industry, and even the community, to carry out all aspects. In addition to formulating economic and industry transformation plans, the authorities have also implemented technology applications at the community level. The Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority established the Singapore Digital Transformation Office (SDO-SG Digital Office) in 2020 and launched the Digital Elderly Program and the Talk Master Learning Digital Program. The former is designed for the elderly to help them learn to use mobile phone instant messaging and electronic payment programs. The latter is aimed at stall owners in cooked food centers, coffee shops, wet markets, etc., to help them apply technology at the business level, for example, to help stall owners use the national shared payment QR (SGQR).
In addition, the Singapore Digital Transformation Office has also established the Singapore Digital Transformation Community Assistance Station (SG Digital Community Hubs), which provides one-on-one and one-stop digital assistance to the elderly and hawker stall owners. The authorities employ college graduates as digital ambassadors, and station 2 to 5 people at each aid station to provide individual guidance or group learning to people in the community.
SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE [CHINESE].
Beyond Limits Director of AI Solutions, Dr. Michael Krause is published in RTInsights discussing the impact of Generative AI models in healthcare research, battery composition design, new carbon capture technologies, and a look into the future.
“Generative models will continue to infiltrate new industries as they grow more advanced. There are already many real-world applications in-play, and research is underway to develop new generative models that expand their potential. One particularly exciting area is in materials discovery for the healthcare and energy industries – use cases include drug discovery, new battery compositions, and developing a new generation of carbon capture materials.”
Read the Full Article – HERE.
Beyond Limits Managing Director for Enterprise Software in Singapore and Southeast Asia, Sidney Lim, is published in Nikkei Asia discussing dynamic markets of Southeast Asia advancing their energy transitions toward a carbon-free future with green energy.
“This transition is about more than just saving the planet. In its “Southeast Asia’s Green Economy 2022 Report,” Bain & Co. estimated that solar and wind power generation would produce $30 billion a year in revenue in the region by 2030. Indeed, the region’s commitment to green energy has acquired unprecedented momentum across both the public and private sectors.”
“The most interesting AI trend to be materializing in the industrial enterprise context will be what we here at Beyond Limits call Knowledge Base Operations (KBS) as applied to engineering applications. KBS will place the optimization of an industrial complex at the fingertips of its unit operators, guiding them and enhancing the Advanced Process Controls.”
Beyond Limits APAC President, Leonard Lee is published by CDO Trends discussing the ways AI adoption has changed the ways humans interact with technology and address pressing challenges, specifically smart manufacturing. The article takes a closer look at deep learning, cloud computing, responsible AI, and Cognitive AI.
“In 2023, several areas in the industrial landscape will witness accelerated adoption and some of the top trends include:
ORIGINALLY POSTED: 01 FEBRUARY 2023
AUTHOR: LEONARD LEE
ASIA-PACIFIC
Beyond Limits APAC President Leonard Lee is published in CIO Review APAC discussing the potential impact of artificial intelligence in heavy asset industries and the rise of Cognitive AI. The article reflects on the rise of AI in 2022 and projects growth as far as 2026 according to IDC Asia Pacific Enterprise Cognitive AI Survey.
“To increase trust and adoption rate, organizations need to leverage Cognitive AI, which functions as a “glass box”- providing clear audit trails explaining the reasoning behind recommendations and showing the evidence, risk, and confidence behind decisions.”
“The way that AI helps, as suggested by many recent studies, is to replace numerical optimization with methods like reinforcement learning. Reinforcement learning models can be trained on numerous operation scenarios, and once trained, they can make scalable decisions in very short time—they can reduce the runtime by at least three orders of magnitude. They can make decisions in a fraction of a second, as opposed to numerical methods that require minutes or even hours for a larger-scale problem,” Hosseini said.
“Embrace AI, it’s the future and the now. AI is intrinsic value, it helps businesses do better, helps them meet their performance goals and optimizes operations in energy transition and reducing the carbon footprint, it has real impact and solutions for the industrial world.”
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