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Nadella Highlights AI in Transforming UAE Economy

Microsoft has had a presence in the UAE for more than 30 years and chose the country as the location for its first data centres in the Middle East….reports Asian Lite News

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella visited the UAE today to experience first-hand how the latest advancements in cloud and AI are supporting UAE organisations across every industry. While speaking at the Microsoft ‘AI, a New Era’ event, Nadella met with local business leaders, government officials and developers and emphasized the role of AI in unlocking new opportunities to accelerate the UAE’s digital economy and transforming the lives of its people.

“This new age of AI will drive innovation and has the potential to expand opportunity and growth around the world – including in the UAE,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “It’s inspiring to see so many developers and businesses in the Emirates already applying AI to address business and societal challenges.”

Microsoft has had a presence in the UAE for more than 30 years and chose the country as the location for its first data centres in the Middle East. Microsoft’s cloud regions are considered a key driver behind the country’s digital transformation, serving as foundations for the deployment of modern technologies, including AI. A PwC report has predicted a US$320 billion AI industry in the Middle East by 2030 and singled out the UAE as likely to have the largest percentage share for AI in its economy out of any nation in the region: close to 14% of 2030 GDP.

During his keynote, Nadella announced the upcoming availability of Azure OpenAI Service from the company’s UAE cloud datacentres. The service, which will be available later this month, provides access to a suite of powerful AI models, including GPT-4, Codex, and DALL-E 2, which can be used to develop innovative AI applications such as virtual assistants, content generation, code generation, image editing tools, and more.

He highlighted some of the ways UAE organisations are leading AI transformation and innovation in key industries:

• The UAE Ministry of Education is partnering with local start-up ASI, founded by 20-year-old Quddus Pativada, to develop a personalised AI tutor which will act as an Arabic and English study companion for UAE students to help them improve their learning beyond the classroom. The tutor will be rolled out across the UAE’s schools. The partnership aligns with the ministry’s drive to incorporate AI into the educational system, announced during the World Government Summit (WGS) 2023.

• The Department of Health in Abu Dhabi is developing a unified, digital experience for patients, which will allow them to provide holistic, on demand healthcare services in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. An AI powered patient assistant, running on Azure, will provide instant access to unified medical records and make searching for a doctor and scheduling appointments effortless.

• G42 released a Large Language Arabic Model, Jais, which will be available through Azure Services and will boost the ability to create original Arabic content for close to 100 million underserviced Arabic language internet users.

• DeepOpinion, co-founded by Dr. Ahmed Al-Ali, is embedding AI models in existing automation workflows running on Microsoft Azure and integrating with Microsoft Power Platform, allowing organisations to reduce repetitive tasks and reduce workplace accidents caused by human error.

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Siemens, Microsoft Collaborate on AI

Siemens and partners launch AI-driven Industrial Copilot for enhanced human-machine collaboration in manufacturing.”…reports Asian Lite News

Industrial manufacturing major Siemens and tech giant Microsoft on Tuesday joined hands to bring the benefits of generative AI to industries worldwide.

Working together, the companies are introducing Siemens Industrial Copilot, an AI-powered jointly developed assistant aimed at improving human-machine collaboration in manufacturing.

“We’re building on our longstanding collaboration with Siemens and bringing together AI advances across the Microsoft Cloud with Siemens’ industrial domain expertise to empower both frontline and knowledge workers with new, AI-powered tools, starting with Siemens Industrial Copilot,” Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft, said in a statement.

Siemens Industrial Copilot will allow users to rapidly generate, optimise and debug complex automation code, and significantly shorten simulation times, reducing a task that previously took weeks to minutes.

“This has the potential to revolutionise the way companies design, develop, manufacture, and operate. Making human-machine collaboration more widely available allows engineers to accelerate code development, increase innovation and tackle skilled labour shortages,” said Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens AG.

Moreover, the companies foresee AI copilots assisting professionals in various industries, including manufacturing, infrastructure, transportation, and healthcare. Numerous copilots are already planned in the manufacturing sectors, such as automotive, consumer package goods and machine building.

Leading automotive supplier, Schaeffler AG, is an early adopter of Siemens Industrial Copilot, the company said.

In addition, the company mentioned that the Siemens Teamcenter app for Microsoft Teams will be generally available in December 2023 and accelerate innovation across the product lifecycle.

This new app uses the latest advances in generative AI to connect functions across the product design and manufacturing lifecycle, such as frontline workers to engineering teams.

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Pichai testifies in US anti-trust trial; takes a dig at Microsoft

Google reportedly paid Apple more than $10 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple devices and software…reports Asian Lite News

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, on Monday, testified in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in the antitrust trial against the company.

The company is accused by the US government of illegally paying huge sums of money to smartphone makers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T and others to make Google the default search engine on their devices to dominate the market. If the government wins the case against Google, the company may have to do away with some of the business practices that helped it to assert dominance in the market.

Pichai, who has been called as a star witness for Google, opened his testimony, speaking about his journey from Chennai to becoming the CEO of Google in 2015, reports CNN.

According to media reports, the Google CEO, during his testimony, said in the initial years the browser market was stagnated as Microsoft was “not that incented to improve the browser,” Internet Explorer. This was before Google launched its Chrome browser.

He said Chrome had a minimalist design and had more room for search results and Google believed that these features would increase the usage of its search platform.

Google’s attorney John Schmidtlein presented before the court an internal e-mail of the company from 2010 that showed that people who changed from Internet Explorer to Chrome performed 48 per cent more searches. “The correlation was pretty clear to see,” Pichai said.

Google reportedly paid Apple more than $10 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple devices and software.

The Google CEO said as the company renegotiated its deal with Apple, in 2016 and in 2021. Google moved to restrict how Apple could treat search questions users entered on its devices. “We wanted to make sure that as we contemplate a longer-term deal that the notion of default is implemented in a similar way” Pichai said.

He described Google’s deals as standard promotional agreements.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in his testimony against Google in the trial earlier this month, had warned that there would be a nightmarish scenario for the internet if Google is allowed to have its uncontested dominance in online search market. He also argued that generative AI will help Google consolidate its power and give it an unassailable advantage. “This is going to become even harder to compete in the AI age with someone who has that core… advantage,” Nadella had said.

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Arab News UAE News

UAE, Microsoft Team Up for Healthcare AI

The collaboration will also explore the deployment of an employee experience platform that can gather real-time insights to enable smarter working, enhanced performance, and an improved workplace culture at the Department of Health (DoH)….reports Asian Lite News

On the sidelines of GITEX Global Week 2023, the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), the regulator of the healthcare sector in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, signed an agreement with Microsoft, to advance the use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the healthcare sector. Through the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the two entities will seek to explore the potential of leveraging leading AI platforms for innovation in healthcare, including to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiencies and enhance health research and services.

The MoU was signed by H.E. Dr. Ahmed AlKhazraji, Executive Director, Strategy and Policy at Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) and Naim Yazbeck, General Manager for Microsoft UAE.

As part of the agreement, the two parties will create a joint working group to facilitate collaboration and communication on this project. The group will study the development and deployment of AI technologies, sharing best practices and lessons while also identifying challenges and barriers that could arise from their use. The aim is to establish a long-term collaboration for the use of AI solutions to advance DoH capabilities, improve patient and clinician experiences and elevate the sectors’ outcomes.

HE Dr. Ahmed AlKhazraji, Executive Director, Strategy and Policy at the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), said: “Under the directives of our wise leadership, the Department of Health (DoH) is pioneering the use of advanced technologies and digital solutions within healthcare in order to enhance patient outcomes, and thus ensure the highest quality of life in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. AI is at the heart of healthcare innovation, and DoH is therefore collaborating with an industry leader like Microsoft to study its potential for benefit across the healthcare industry, and to set the stage for a future driven by innovation. Reinforcing the Emirate’s positioning as a leading destination for innovation in healthcare, the Department’s goal remains to establish Abu Dhabi as a forerunner in healthcare quality and services, and to advance vital research within the sector for the benefit of the entire community.”

The collaboration will also explore the deployment of an employee experience platform that can gather real-time insights to enable smarter working, enhanced performance, and an improved workplace culture at the Department of Health (DoH).

Naim Yazbeck, General Manager for Microsoft UAE, said that Microsoft is proud to serve as a longstanding partner on the UAE’s digital transformation journey. “The UAE government very early identified digital transformation as being key to accelerating the growth of the healthcare sector and enhancing the quality of healthcare services for patients in the region. Our collaboration with the DoH supports the UAE’s vision of leveraging the latest technologies such as generative AI to tackle key challenges, drive innovation, and enhance productivity across critical sectors. We look forward to working with the DoH to unlock the potential of this transformative technology in setting new standards for healthcare excellence in Abu Dhabi and around the world.”

The agreement is expected to present multiple opportunities for cross-industry learning, including in terms of healthcare knowledge for generative AI technologies. In turn, AI has the capacity to support decision-making in the healthcare sector by identifying areas of concern and predicting the impact of new regulations and policies. The DoH remains committed to safeguarding data integrity and privacy as it looks into integrating the most advanced solutions towards improving health services in Abu Dhabi.

The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) is inviting guests to visit its stand and view the latest healthcare technologies and innovations of Abu Dhabi’s healthcare sector. DoH is participating under the unified umbrella of the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority (ADDA), located in Sheikh Saeed Hall, Hall 19/B20 from 16 October 2023 to 20 October 2023.

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Business Economy UK News

Microsoft’s $68.7 Billion Activision Deal Cleared in UK

This computerized image shows the corporate logos of U.S. software giant Microsoft and U.S. game developer Activision Blizzard.(Yonhap/IANS)

The UK’s CMA has greenlit Microsoft’s adjusted proposal addressing concerns about cloud gaming market dominance….reports Asian Lite News

The UK’s anti-trust watchdog on Friday cleared the restructured deal for Microsoft to buy gaming giant Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, after it concluded that the new deal would preserve competitive prices and better services.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) accepted a restructured Microsoft’s proposal that addresses the CMA’s concerns about Microsoft dominating the cloud gaming market.

In August this year, Microsoft made a concession that would see Ubisoft, instead of Microsoft, buy Activision’s cloud gaming rights. 

“This new deal will put the cloud streaming rights (outside the EEA) for all of Activision’s PC and console content produced over the next 15 years in the hands of a strong and independent competitor with ambitious plans to offer new ways of accessing that content,” said the CMA in a statement.

The new deal will stop Microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming as this market takes off, preserving competitive prices and services for UK cloud gaming customers. 

It will allow Ubisoft to offer Activision’s content under any business model, including through multigame subscription services. 

It will also help to ensure that cloud gaming providers will be able to use non-Windows operating systems for Activision content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency, the UK’s market regulator noted.

“We delivered a clear message to Microsoft that the deal would be blocked unless they comprehensively addressed our concerns and stuck to our guns on that,” said Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA.

With the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, “we’ve made sure Microsoft can’t have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market,” Cardell added.  

In August, Microsoft submitted a restructured proposal to UK’s anti-trust watchdog for approval of its acquisition of Activision.

As part of the restructuring, Microsoft will transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to French video game publisher Ubisoft.

The sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft will prevent the distribution of important, popular content – including games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft – from coming under the control of Microsoft in relation to cloud gaming, said the CMA.

“Cloud gaming is an important new way for gamers to access games and this deal could have seriously undermined its potential development. On that we, the European Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission are in full agreement,” said Martin Coleman, Chair of the Independent Panel who reviewed the original Microsoft deal.

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Microsoft-Activision $75bn deal gets regulator’s final approval

The Federal Trade Commission is maintaining its opposition to the deal but it cannot prevent Microsoft and Activision from completing it…reports Asian Lite News

The UK’s competition watchdog has cleared Microsoft’s $69bn (£54bn) deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the maker of games including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, in a move that paves the way for both companies to complete the transaction.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) moved to block the megadeal in April, citing concerns that Microsoft – the maker of the Xbox gaming console – would dominate the nascent cloud gaming market.

However, last month the watchdog said a revised deal that included selling cloud gaming rights outside Europe to Activision Blizzard’s French rival Ubisoft had addressed its concerns, indicating the tie-up would be approved.

Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, said on Friday that the competition regulator had ensured that Microsoft could not have a “stranglehold” over cloud gaming, which allows users to stream video games stored on remote servers on to their devices.

“As cloud gaming grows, this intervention will ensure people get more competitive prices, better services and more choice,” Cardell said.

The acquisition agreement with Activision Blizzard had been due to expire on 18 October.

Activision Blizzard’s chief executive, Bobby Kotick, said in a note to staff that the company was now ready to finalise the transaction.

“We now have all regulatory approvals necessary to close and we look forward to bringing joy and connection to even more players around the world,” he wrote.

The UK regulator had appeared increasingly isolated in its position blocking the takeover after its EU counterparts passed the deal – when Microsoft offered alternative concessions on cloud gaming rights – and the US competition regulator failed to secure a court injunction to stop it.

The Federal Trade Commission is maintaining its opposition to the deal but it cannot prevent Microsoft and Activision from completing it.

The CMA, having been accused by Microsoft and Activision Blizzard of being anti-business with its original decision to block the deal, also turned on Microsoft in its statement.

Cardell said Microsoft had initially persisted with a deal structure that would not work, before amending its proposal.

“Businesses and their advisers should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA,” she said. “Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work.”

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Business Tech Lite Technology

Microsoft Set to Debut AI Chip

Nvidia, Microsoft team up to build AI supercomputer

Microsoft’s AI chip, similar to Nvidia GPUs, is designed for data centre servers….reports Asian Lite News

Tech giant Microsoft is likely to unveil its first chip designed for artificial intelligence (AI) at its annual developers’ conference ‘Ignite’ next month.

According to a report in The Information, citing sources, the move “could help Microsoft lessen its reliance on Nvidia-designed AI chips, which have been in short supply as demand for them has boomed”.

According to the report, Microsoft’s AI chip, similar to Nvidia GPUs, is designed for data centre servers.

Microsoft’s data centre servers currently use Nvidia GPUs to power cutting-edge LLMs for cloud customers, including OpenAI and Intuit, as well as for AI features in Microsoft’s productivity apps.

The Information first reported on the AI chip, which is codenamed Athena, in April this year.

Microsoft’s flagship ‘Ignite’ conference is scheduled to take place from November 14-17.

Earlier reports mentioned that Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the maker of AI chatbot ChatGPT, is looking to develop its own AI chips and has even considered acquiring another company for this purpose.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has made acquiring more AI processors a primary priority for the company, is one of the main driving forces behind developing its own chips.

He has reportedly raised concerns about the restricted availability and expensive costs of the hardware required to power OpenAI’s software.

OpenAI has been developing its generative AI capabilities on a Microsoft-built supercomputer that employs thousands of Nvidia GPUs.

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Ofcom launches probe into Amazon, Microsoft cloud services  

Amazon. (photo:ianstwitter)

In its market study, Ofcom identified a number of features in the supply of cloud services that make it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple cloud suppliers…reports Asian Lite News

UK media regulator Ofcom on Thursday referred the public cloud infrastructure services market to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for an independent investigation to further examine US tech giants Amazon and Microsoft’s dominance of the cloud market in the country.

In its market study, Ofcom identified a number of features in the supply of cloud services that make it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple cloud suppliers.

Ofcom has estimated that the market for cloud services in the UK was worth up to 7.5 billion pounds in 2022. “We welcome Ofcom’s referral of public cloud infrastructure services to us for in-depth scrutiny. This is a 7.5 billion pounds market that underpins a whole host of online services — from social media to AI foundation models,” said Sarah Cardell, CEO of the CMA.

The features which Ofcom is most concerned about are charges that cloud customers must pay to move their data out of the cloud.

The media regulator is also concerned about discounts which may incentivise customers to use only one cloud provider and technical barriers to switching, which may prevent customers from being able to switch between different clouds or use more than one provider. The Ofcom study found that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft had a combined market share of supply by revenue in the UK public cloud infrastructure services market of 70-80 per cent in 2022.

“The CMA’s independent inquiry group will now carry out an investigation to determine whether competition in this market is working well and if not, what action should be taken to address any issues it finds,” said Cardell.

The CMA has appointed independent panel members to an inquiry group, who will act as the decision makers on this investigation. The CMA will conclude its investigation by April 2025.

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Nadella: Microsoft Was Ready to Pay Apple ‘Dearly’ to Unseat Google

Nadella said he was willing to hide the Bing brand in Apple users’ search engines and respect any of the company’s privacy wishes..reports Asian Lite News

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella has admitted that the company’s Bing search engine is not as good as Google, and becoming Apple’s default search engine could actually help Bing grow in the global search market.

During a testimony in the landmark US vs Google antitrust trial late on Monday, Nadella said that he sees search as the largest software category out there by far, reports The Verge.

“I used to think of Windows and Office as attractive businesses until I saw the search,” he said during the testimony.

He said that Microsoft was prepared to give Apple all of the economic upside of the deal if Apple were to switch to Bing, and “he was prepared to lose up to $15 billion a year in the process”.

Google.

Nadella said he was willing to hide the Bing brand in Apple users’ search engines and respect any of the company’s privacy wishes. “Defaults are the only thing that matter, in terms of changing user behaviour,” he was quoted as saying.

For Nadella, becoming Apple’s default search engine wouldn’t be about the money, at least not directly.

“We needed to be less greedy and more competitive,” he said during the testimony.

Asked if Microsoft tried to become Apple’s default search engine, Nadella said yes but the effort did not go well. Not only are the economics of the Google deal hugely favourable for Apple, he said, but Apple may also be afraid of what Google would do if it lost default status, according to the report.

Google also has immensely popular services like Gmail and YouTube. Nadella said AI has the potential to shake up the market a bit but he also believes it could “further entrench Google’s dominance”.

The US Justice Department alleges that Google, which has around 90 per cent of the search market, has abused the dominance of its search engine to throttle competition and innovation.

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Microsoft Bets Big On AI

Microsoft said it will soon add access to OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image generator for users to create images right in a chat…reports Asian Lite News

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella on Thursday doubled down on the role of generative AI in the company’s product portfolio, starting with Windows 11 that will include the new AI-powered Copilot feature, along with launching a powerful new Surface laptop lineup.

With over 150 new features, the new Windows 11 Update will be available starting September 26, bringing the power of Copilot and new AI-powered experiences to apps like Paint, Photos, Clipchamp and more right to your Windows PC.

“Microsoft Copilot will uniquely incorporate the context and intelligence of the web, your work data and what you are doing in the moment on your PC to provide better assistance — with your privacy and security at the forefront,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer.

“It will be a simple and seamless experience, available in Windows 11, Microsoft 365, and in our web browser with Edge and Bing. It will work as an app or reveal itself when you need it with a right click,” he told the gathering.

Microsoft 365 Copilot will generally be available to commercial customers starting November 1 with a more powerful version of M365 Chat, new capabilities for Copilot in Outlook, Excel, Loop, OneNote, OneDrive and Word.

The company also announced new features in Bing and Edge.

Bing Chat Enterprise will also get a few upgrades including support for multimodal visual search and Image Creator now available in the Microsoft Edge mobile app, the company announced.

Microsoft said it will soon add access to OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image generator for users to create images right in a chat.

“We are entering a new era of AI, one that is fundamentally changing how we relate to and benefit from technology. With the convergence of chat interfaces and large language models you can now ask for what you want in natural language and the technology is smart enough to answer, create it or take action,” said Mehdi.

Additionally, the company introduced new Surface laptops. The Surface Laptop Studio 2 with 14.4-inch display starts at $1,999 and runs on Intel’s 13th generation chips.

Turbocharged with the latest Intel Core processors and cutting-edge NVIDIA Studio tools for creators-with up to 2x more graphics performance than MacBook Pro M2 Max, the device brings together the versatility to create and the power to perform, said Microsoft.

The Studio 2 also offers some big new connectivity options: it has two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, a microSD card reader, and the Surface Slim Pen 2.

Microsoft also announced Surface Laptop Go 3 that comes with a 12.4-inch touchscreen and offers up to 15 hours of battery life, along with one USB-A port, one USB-C port, and a headphone jack.

The Surface Laptop Go 3 starts at $799, with availability starting October 3.

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