Why London is a Powerhouse in Artificial Intelligence
Everyone talks about San Francisco & Silicon Valley as being the go-to places for artificial intelligence, and sure, there’s plenty there, but there are other cities that offer their own unique perspectives and boons to AI. London’s AI scene isn’t talked about enough, even though it’s home to many world-renowned AI organizations, including Google’s DeepMind. Here are a few reasons why you should consider learning more about the London AI scene, including AI companies, research institutions, and startups.
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Research Labs
We guarantee you’ve heard of these AI research labs in London! Here are just a few standout ones.
- The DeepMind Lab: DeepMind, acquired by Google in 2014, has been responsible for groundbreaking advancements in AI, such as the AlphaGo program that defeated the world’s best Go players.
- The Alan Turing Institute: Housed within the British Library, this lab works to solve challenges in data science and artificial intelligence. Named in honor of the pioneering theoretical mathematician Alan Turing, the center started with five founding universities, including two on this list already: Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, UCL, and Warwick.
- UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence: The center brings together researchers who work on core AI challenges including machine vision, machine learning, and natural language processing. They also collaborate with other AI communities in London. Their research is intended to provide a foundation for methodological advancements in AI across UCL.
- The Institute for Ethical AI & Machine Learning: The Institute for Ethical AI & Machine Learning is a Europe-based research center that develops frameworks that support the responsible development, deployment, and operation of machine learning systems.
- Artificial Intelligence Research Centre (CitAI) — City, University of London: The Artificial Intelligence Research Centre (CitAI) is a research group at City, University of London. CitAI’s research interests include the development of novel AI techniques, Explainable AI (XAI), and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), with a focus on the legal, ethical, and social impact of AI.
- King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence: The King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence is a research center at King’s College London that supports a wide range of AI research, with a focus on real-world applications. Areas of research strength include machine learning, robotics, natural language processing, and AI for healthcare.
AI Companies in London
There are plenty of amazing AI companies in London that are developing the latest technology, tools, frameworks, and other life-changing developments! Here are just a few of them:
- Synthesia uses machine learning to generate videos with AI avatars and audio.
- Quantexa is a data intelligence company serving the banking, insurance, and telecommunications industries.
- Wayve uses AI to analyze driving and traffic data to develop self-driving vehicles. They just received a $1B investment.
- Microsoft recently announced a new AI Hub coming to London soon as well.
Startups and Funding
London and surrounding areas are home to plenty of AI startups that have received funding in recent memory. Here are some AI startups in London to pay attention to.
- Hyperexponential, a London-based provider of pricing decision intelligence (PDI) software for the commercial insurance sector based in London, raised a $73,000,000 Series B round.
- Jigsaw: London-based Jigsaw, a builder of diagrams, that allows users to both visualize and manipulate the complex underlying data, raised over £12M in Series-A funding.
- PolyAI: London-based PolyAI, which developed a machine learning platform for conversational artificial intelligence, raised $116M in Series C
Leading Names in AI
Representing the companies above and plenty more, here are some previous ODSC Europe speakers who represent what the UK has to offer in the field of AI.
- Heiko Hotz | Senior Solutions Architect for AI & Machine Learning | AWS
- Laura Weidinger | Senior Research Scientist | Google Deepmind
- Alan Rutter | Founder | Fire Plus Algebra
- Dr Paul A. Bilokon | Visiting Lecturer, CEO and Founder | Imperial College London, Thalesians Ltd
- Franz Kiraly, PhD | Founder and Core Developer of sktime | sktime
- Electrolux | Data Scientist | Electrolux
- Gustavo Sato dos Santos, PhD | VP Research | Vortexa
- Piotr Mirowski, PhD | Staff Research Scientist | DeepMind
- Tim Santos | Director of Product, AI Cloud Solutions | Graphcore
- Mark Needham | Developer Relations Engineer | StarTree
- Helen Yannakoudakis, PhD | Assistant Professor | King’s College London
- Daniel Lenton, PhD | CEO | Ivy
- Sam Blake, PhD | Lead Data Scientist | Ocado Technology
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What’s next?
Everything above is only a taste of what London has to offer in AI. There are countless more organizations, startups, universities, and individuals who are helping to make London a go-to place for artificial intelligence. If you want to learn more about everything the London AI scene has to offer, then be sure to check out ODSC Europe this September 5th-6th in West London!
Originally posted on OpenDataScience.com
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