Welcome back. Global efforts to build ever-faster and more powerful computers is largely a two-way race between the U.S. and China, with Europe trailing behind. But unlike China, which faces obstacles erected by the U.S. government aimed at curtailing its digital ambitions, European companies eager to develop supercomputers are able to lean on global tech partners.

Take OTP Bank, a large financial services firm based in Budapest, Hungary. Last week, the bank announced a multi-year contract with SambaNova Systems, a Palo Alto, Calif., startup that provides an integrated hardware-software platform designed to power AI supercomputers.

The deal, which is subscription based, will enable OTP Bank to tap advanced language models and other digital tools to improve personalized services and internal data analytics at its 1,700 branches across 11 Eastern and Central European countries, including Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Ukraine and Russia, bank officials say.

By making its new, high-speed capabilities available to public-sector agencies, universities and other research groups—through a partnership with the Hungarian government—the bank also hopes to boost Europe’s standing in the global supercomputer race, if only by a step or two.

OTP Bank, one of the largest financial services firms in Eastern and Central Europe, is making a multi-year investment in developing an AI supercomputer, saying supercharged computing power will enable it to leverage advanced AI-powered language models and boost internal data analytics tied to every aspect of the bank’s operations, WSJ Pro AI reports.

International team. The bank, based in Budapest, Hungary, is tapping Palo Alto, Calif.-based SambaNova Systems Inc. to build that system, leveraging the startup’s integrated full-stack software and hardware platform.

Global concerns. The move, announced last week, comes as the European market trails behind the U.S. and China in building faster, more powerful computers, a race many global leaders see as an issue of national security.

Battery technology firm using AI raises $20 million. Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital Holdings Inc. is leading a $20 million funding round for Mitra Future Technologies Inc., a startup that hopes to use machine learning to address the challenge of producing battery components.

AI-enabled background check company raises $22 million. Israel-based Intellego’s risk platform combs through 400,000 public data sources to provide background-check services to corporations and other clients, VentureBeat reports.

AI in the gutter. Sewer AI, started in 2019 in Walnut Creek, Calif., trains its computer-vision system to automatically identify and categorize defects in sewer pipes. The WSJ’s Christopher Mims reports on how HK Solutions Group, which handles sewer inspections for more than 150 U.S. municipalities, is sending Sewer AI video of 200,000 feet of sewer pipe a month for automatic identification and tracking. The result is that what used to require weeks or months of processing by certified human inspectors can now be accomplished in as little as a day, Michael Ingham, HK Solutions’ chief sales officer, tells Mr. Mims.

“It doesn’t require us to have people subjectively grading these sewer systems as to what’s a defect, what’s not, what’s the severity of that defect,” says Mr. Ingham. “The AI just identifies that now.”

Companies order record number of robots. Total robotics sales for the first nine months of the year were $1.48 billion, topping a previous record of $1.47 billion set over the same period in 2017, according to the Association for Advancing Automation, or A3. Sales rose from $1.09 billion in the first nine months of last year. Researchers and companies are working on advancing artificial intelligence systems to enable robots to work with a wider array of objects.

AI surveillance systems infiltrate U.S. prisons. Administrators are installing speech-to-text systems designed to record and analyze phone conversations between prisoners and the outside world, Thomson Reuters Foundation reports. Prison authorities say the systems, trained to identify keywords that may allude to prison violence or other criminal activities, keep prisoners safe. But critics say the systems interfere with privacy rights.

Landing.AI lands $57 million. The company's computer vision tools are used by manufacturers including Stanley Black & Decker, CNBC reports. Landing.AI was founded by Andrew Ng, who started the Google Brain research lab and before that was Baidu Inc.'s chief scientist.

Car tech guru switcheroo. Apple Inc. has hired Tesla Inc. engineer Christopher Moore to work on its self-driving effort, Bloomberg reports. The news come weeks after Doug Field, the head of Apple's car project, left for Ford Motor Co.

Ohio’s attorney general is suing Meta Platforms, alleging it misled the public about how it controlled its algorithm and the effects its products have on children.

Entrepreneur and business author Gary Vaynerchuk has racked up more than one million preorders of his coming leadership book after promising readers one nonfungible token, or NFT, with every purchase of 12 print copies.

A lawsuit over a $64 billion cache aims to unveil the true identity or identities behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, answering the enduring question of who created the cryptocurrency

Roblox Inc., which operates a free online platform with millions of games and other entertainment experiences all made by its own users, announced plans to help fund games targeting students.
 

Write to Enterprise Technology Editor Steven Rosenbush and Pro AI newsletter author Angus Loten.

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