AI News Roundup: US to Gauge National Reliance on Chinese Chips

AI Business brings you the latest news and insights from across the AI world.

This week’s roundup covers U.S. efforts to wean American companies’ reliance on Chinese legacy chips, Princeton to set up an AI hub and AI avatars go on a date.

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US to gauge reliance on Chinese chips

The U.S. Commerce Department is launching a survey in January to gauge the reliance of U.S. companies on Chinese legacy computer chips.

The results of the survey will “inform U.S. policy to bolster the semiconductor supply chain, promote a level playing field for legacy chip production, and reduce national security risks posed by the People’s Republic of China.”

These chips are not the advanced AI chips that the Biden administration recently banned for export to China but legacy ones that are being used ubiquitously in U.S. industries.

“Legacy chips are essential to supporting critical U.S. industries, like telecommunications, automotive and the defense industrial base. Addressing non-market actions by foreign governments that threaten the U.S. legacy chip supply chain is a matter of national security,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, in a statement.

“Over the last few years, we’ve seen potential signs of concerning practices from the PRC to expand their firms’ legacy chip production and make it harder for U.S. companies to compete.”

Can AI predict your life’s events?

A research project from Northeastern University in the U.S., DTU, University of Copenhagen and ITU led to the development of an AI model that can probabilistically predict coming life events.

In a paper published in Nature Computational Science, researchers looked at data from six million Danes to predict such things as life span, according to DTU. Results from the AI model, called life2vec, are consistent with other findings from the social sciences. For example, higher income folks are more likely to live longer.

"We used the model to address the fundamental question: to what extent can we predict events in your future based on conditions and events in your past? Scientifically, what is exciting for us is not so much the prediction itself, but the aspects of data that enable the model to provide such precise answers," said Sune Lehmann, professor at DTU and first author of the paper.

Princeton to set up AI hub

Princeton University and the state of New Jersey announced plans to create an AI innovation hub in the state. It will be funded by the state and from private sector partnerships, but the amount was not disclosed.

The center is expected to bring together AI researchers, industry leaders, startups and other collaborators to advance R&D, develop the use of ethical AI and promote workforce development.

“With AI, we have a chance to confront — and perhaps overcome — some of the greatest challenges facing our world,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, in a statement.

They also plan to co-host an AI conference on April 11 that will convene experts from academia, industry and government to discuss “the most pressing AI issues of the day.”

Send your avatar on a date before meeting IRL

Enso AI has created an AI-native dating app that sends your avatars on first dates – before you meet in real life.

The AI avatar is trained on a user’s personality, tastes and preferences so it can meet a prospective partner’s avatar to see if there is a match. Only if the two avatars get along will it lead to a first date, according to the team.

The idea behind the app comes from Ben Chiang, who was formerly director of product at Snapchat and head of global data at Uber.