IBM is committing hundreds of millions to a new AI lab. Jaguar has become the latest car company to abandon the internal combustion engine. And Toronto wants Amazon to build its next headquarters within sight of the CN Tower.
On Reddit today, readers are buzzing over IBM’s $240 million U.S. investment into an artificial intelligence research lab that it will operate in tandem with MIT – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to IBM the money, which will be invested over the course of a decade, will be used to fund research into algorithms, hardware optimization, and health care applications that can be powered by Watson, the company’s signature AI platform. MIT is no stranger to AI: it’s home to one of the U.S.’s first AI labs, and IBM has collaborated with them before, on air defense research and superconductors.
Also on Reddit, U.K.-based Jaguar Land Rover is making waves after committing to build only hybrid or electric vehicles from 2020 onward. The news is notable for two reasons, one of them being that Jaguar doesn’t actually build any electric vehicles yet itself. The company unveiled a single electronic concept car back in November, and while CEO Ralf Speth said that Jaguar sees battery-powered cars as a way to grow its global workforce of 40,000, no other details have been revealed. However, the announcement makes Jaguar the second major car company to commit to electric vehicles, with two months after Volvo promised that all of its cars from 2019 onward will be hybrid or electric.
Finally, Toronto mayor John Tory has used Twitter to announce that Canada’s largest city will be competing for Amazon’s new second headquarters. The Seattle-based tech giant announced Thursday that it was looking for another city in North America for a second head office that will cost at least $5 billion – with a B – U.S. dollars to build and employ at least 50,000 people. So far, most writeups on American websites have interpreted “North America” to mean U.S., but Tory’s reminder that Toronto meets all of the requirements Amazon is looking for, including a metropolitan area of more than 1 million people, an international airport, transit access, and a pool of high-quality tech talent, has been retweeted more than 500 times.
