Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the leading (if not the leading) topics of conversation these days. The recent advances in AI have made it even more than before and are now closer to reality than you might imagine. Until the last decade, computers were not as sophisticated at producing sentences that make sense. They could not compete with humans in many aspects and humans seem irreplaceable in areas such as language. However, the past few years has changed the narrative completely. The field of natural language processing (NLP) has advanced significantly and machines are now competing humans and are even showing signs of understanding human language.

Corporate giants such as Google, IBM and Apple are competing in the race to acquire private AI companies, but who's making the most investments? RS Components has analysed the acquisition records of some of the world's biggest tech giants over the last decade to see who's investing the most in AI startups. You can view the piece, and each company's acquisitions in full here.

The global race to produce AI has caused some interesting developments in countries around the world. The world’s nations are certainly onboard with the rise of AI. As such, the international community has moved to embrace and employ AI. Major nations around the world have invested in research and development to advance AI.

As algorithms get exponentially more advanced, AI will become even more lifelike. But, the biggest gap between real and virtual is a hurdle almost impossible to imagine in a machine; can AI account for emotion and feelings? To date, one of the hardest things for AI to emulate is human emotion. AI robots shown at the Consumer Electronics Show still appear “off” when compared to humans. We already make synthetic models that look convincingly human. Remarkably lifelike and able to respond with intelligence and knowledge far exceeding one human’s capacity, they still ring false.