Welcome back. Big tech firms have long pushed local governments to adopt smart city strategies, promising to do away with traffic jams, boost energy efficiency and other benefits. The goal is to replace aging infrastructure with AI-embedded connected systems. But the economics of overhauling older systems with smart software, especially in the wake of Covid-19, is turning some industry heavyweights away, including Cisco Systems and Alphabet. 

Cisco Systems is pulling the plug on its smart cities effort, which sought to help local governments prep for the arrival of self-driving cars, smart lighting and other connected systems that rely on AI-powered software, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Covid-19 impact. The setback comes as the pandemic drains city and state agencies of cash and resources for smart-city investments, while cutting into Cisco’s core networking-equipment business.

Alphabet street. Similarly, Alphabet Inc.-backed Sidewalk Labs is abandoning a billion-dollar smart-city project on Toronto’s waterfront, after pouring millions of dollars into the effort with little to show for it.

Auto makers are kitting out more vehicles with automated steering and speed control, with some systems allowing drivers to take their hands off the wheel in slow-moving traffic, whether they are stuck downtown or on the highway, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Safety concerns. Car companies have also been adding tools to prevent hands-free drivers from getting distracted behind the wheel, including automatic emergency breaking systems and sensors that keep cars in their lanes.

Activist hedge fund Third Point LLC wants Intel to make strategic changes, after the company last year lost its rank as America’s highest-valued chip maker, falling behind rival Nvidia in the fast-growing market for artificial-intelligence processing, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Investor input. Daniel Loeb, Third Point’s chief executive, says Intel should consider selling some of its acquisitions and splitting design and manufacturing operations. Intel replied saying it “welcomes input from all investors.”

More than 40 corporate technology executives responded to CIO Journal's 2020 end-of-year questionnaire, covering a range of enterprise IT issues. Here’s what some of the world's largest companies are thinking about artificial intelligence:

“As technology teams become much more integrated into the business and develop deeper business knowledge and expertise, understanding how complex applications, platforms and third-party systems interact, it leads to technology being at the table much more often than in the past.  This is compounded by what’s happening in data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and the growing need to use data to augment and guide interactions with clients and other stakeholders. These changes have pushed technology into executive discussions and into the board room.”

—Dennis Howard, executive vice president and CIO at Charles Schwab.

“This year we’ve set company records for the number of patents submitted for (415) and granted (184) in the first half of the year, with nearly half of those aligning to artificial intelligence, machine learning or information security. The integration of digital and physical, coupled with our culture of innovation, enhances how we serve clients every day.”

—Mark Pepitone, senior vice president of corporate communications for global technology and operations at Bank of America.

“We in IT are transforming Cisco’s major platforms to be more responsive for challenges ahead while driving digitization of the business, transformation of the digital workplace, using the latest technologies and artificial intelligence to drive a NoOps and Self Service agenda, and transformation of IT itself to become truly globalized and simplified to increase agility and speed to value for the business. Information technology has never been more relevant than now.”

—Jacqueline Guichelaar,  group CIO at Cisco Systems.

Digital efforts accelerate. Chief information officers say the pandemic has spurred efforts to upgrade business operations with digital tools, including advanced software capabilities, setting a rapid pace for ongoing transformation initiatives in the year ahead. (WSJ) 

Real-estate pricing. Montreal-based startup Squarefeet.ai is using smart software to estimate prices for residential properties on the market, factoring in location, nearby listings, website images and housing market data, among more than a hundred other attributes. (Forbes) 

Google workers organize. Some 225 engineers and other Alphabet Inc. workers have formed a union, the group said Monday, sparked in part by longstanding tensions over pay, harassment and ethics, including work with the U.S. Defense Department to develop AI-powered systems. (New York Times)

Steady advances. ETH Zurich researchers are combining AI, fluid mechanics and supercomputers to automate turbulence modeling, a key calculation for designing cars and heart valves, among other potential applications. (Tech Xplore) 

Less really is more. An AI system being developed by University of Waterloo researchers requires less input to recognize new data without being fed examples, a technique known as less-than-one-shot learning, or LO-shot learning. (Scientific American)

Drones overhead. The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the way for small drones to operate over people who aren’t directly involved in the operations or are under a covered structure or vehicle, paving the way for broader commercial use. (Reuters)    

Discovering AI. Discovery Place Science, a science and technology museum in Charlotte, N.C., is set to open a traveling exhibition offering interactive displays where visitors can use AI tools to translate stories, play the piano and paint their own renaissance masterpieces. (Independent Tribune)
 

A health-care venture launched with great fanfare by three of the world’s most prominent companies—Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan—and their chief executives is folding about three years after its founding. (WSJ)

Amazon.com Inc. can’t use its cloud-computing business’s AWS logo in China, a Beijing court ruled, the latest headache for a company that has already been hampered by Chinese regulations and rivals. (WSJ)

Mobile-phone chip giant Qualcomm on Tuesday named Cristiano Amon to succeed Steve Mollenkopf as chief executive as it puts a period of legal struggles behind it and aims to capitalize on rising demand for superfast 5G phones. (WSJ) 

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

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