SingularityNET, a startup developing a decentralized artificial
intelligence (AI) network, has announced a partnership with Ping An, the
world’s largest and most valuable insurer and one of the biggest investment and
asset management companies.
The partnership will begin with a focus on three main areas:
optical character recognition (OCR), cross validation (CV), and model training,
where SingularityNET’s ecosystem could be applied for commercial purposes.
“Ping An Technology and SingularityNET have reached the
intention to collaborate in the field of AI, possible future directions for
collaboration include (but are not limited to) OCR and model training,” said Bai
Meng, AI lead for Ping An and the firm’s commercial division.
Ping An is currently experimenting and testing application
of new technologies to the areas of AI, blockchain and finance. In the past
decade, the firm has invested more than RMB
50 billion in technology development, gathered more than 23,000 research and
development (R&D) personnel, 500 big data experts and established six
research institutes.
Ping An’s tech subsidiary, Ping An Technology, has birthed
several fintech and insurtech unicorns including peer-to-peer lender Lufax, healthcare
portal Ping An Good Doctor, and hospital visits booking mobile app Ping An
Healthcare and Technology.
“The scale of Ping An provides considerable opportunities to
showcase the benefits of AI application,” said Dr Ben Goertzel, CEO at
SingularityNET.
“We are currently discussing how to integrate SingularityNET
infrastructure with Ping An’s IT infrastructure in order to analyze the
different types of data available.”
The partnership could evolve into further collaborations
across multiple industries and initiatives in the future, SingularityNET said
on Wednesday.
SingularityNET is developing an open source ecosystem for AI
services built on the Ethereum network. The startup aims to democratize access
to AI by providing a marketplace for users to buy and sell advanced solutions
in a decentralized manner, providing them with access to algorithms that have
traditionally been the preserve of Silicon Valley giants.
SingularityNET is overseen by the SingularityNET Foundation,
a non-profit incorporated in the Netherlands responsible for building,
supervising and accelerating the growth of the network and marketplace. It raised
US$36 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017 to fund the
development of the project.
SingularityNET’s collaboration with Ping An was announced at
the Token2049 event held in Hong Kong earlier this week, and follows the launch
of the startup’s beta marketplace in February.
The global AI market size is
expected to grow to roughly US$90 billion in 2025.