The age of artificial intelligence (A.I.) is finally upon us. Consumer applications of A.I., in particular, have come a long way, leading to more accurate search results for online shoppers, allowing apps and websites to make more personalized recommendations, and enabling voice-activated digital assistants to better understand us.

As impressive as these uses of A.I. are, they only hint at how this game-changing technology will be applied in business. Because the goal of business A.I. is to help the companies that drive our global economy learn from their data to become vastly more resilient, adaptive, and innovative.

We all know there is tremendous potential value in data, which continues to grow exponentially. In fact, the world is creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (that's 2.5 followed by 18 zeros). To harness that potential, companies need A.I. to make sense of the data, and hybrid cloud computing platforms that can distribute it across organizations.

​The economic opportunity behind these technologies is enormous, given that business is only about 10 percent of the way to realizing A.I.'s full potential.

By Arvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IBM

​Read the full article here.

By Naomi Grimley
Health Correspondent

Gordon Brown has warned that the world risks "sleepwalking" into another Covid variant crisis if it does not increase vaccinations in low-income countries.

Wealthier countries needed to share the cost of global vaccinations, tests and treatments, he told the BBC.

Speaking before an international Covid summit on Thursday, the former UK prime minister said the world had become "complacent" about the virus.

US President Joe Biden is due to host the virtual summit at the White House.

He does so at a time when Congress has failed to approve key funds earmarked for the global pandemic response.

Campaigners fear that could mean other countries will not offer extra money either, leaving the push for better vaccine coverage around the world without momentum.

Mr Brown, who is a World Health Organization (WHO) ambassador on health finance, said the numbers were "shocking".

"Only 11% have been vaccinated in low-income countries and we set a target of 70%," he said.
"Tragically, we are sleepwalking into the next variant, and political leaders are still not listening to the medical advice that is still there - that we've got to increase vaccination, continue to test at a high level, and provide the new treatments available."

​Read the full article here.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is showing promising results in detecting breast cancer which may otherwise have been missed by radiologists, the largest study of its kind has found.

Researchers in Germany discovered that AI can correctly detect interval breast cancers, which develop in between routine screening rounds (usually 24 months in many countries) and can be missed and diagnosed as a false negative result.

In 2020, there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer and 685 000 deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The peer-reviewed study showed approximately 16 per cent of interval cancers are probably visible during a previous screening while one in five may be too subtle to the human eye and can be missed by radiologists, which is known as "minimal signs".

The findings present an opportunity to detect more cancers at a screening with AI, which may help detect breast cancer earlier.

​Read the full article here.