DEBATE: Could fintechs solve London’s dirty money problem? July 25, 2019 Could fintechs be the answer to solving London’s dirty money problem? Michael Harris, director of financial crime compliance and reputational risk at Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions, says YES. By their very nature, fintech firms are disruptive and have a reputation for driving change in their field. Why shouldn’t the fight against money laundering be led [...]
Tradeweb’s CEO on tech, China, and modernising bond markets July 24, 2019 While researching Lee Olesky, the co-founder and chief executive of the fixed-income market platform Tradeweb, I came across an article comparing him to Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos. Both started their companies in the nineties. Both set out to use the internet and ecommerce to disrupt their respective industries at a time when the idea of [...]
Is India the world’s future investment hub? July 23, 2019 Could the investment profession's future be in India?
City law firm Simmons & Simmons buys legal engineering startup to turbocharge Libor replacement July 23, 2019 City law firm Simmons & Simmons today said it had acquired legal engineering firm Wavelength to help its clients on large projects such as the replacement of Libor. Wavelength describes itself as the first regulated legal engineering business in the world. Its chief executive Peter Lee said Wavelength applies data science, technology and design to [...]
Politicians need to wake up to the risks of artificial superintelligence July 23, 2019 Politicians aren’t very good at thinking about more than one thing at a time. Take Brexit as an example, if you needed one. Everything other than our proposed exit from the European Union – and who will be the Prime Minister to lead us through it – has been downgraded to an inconvenient side-show. This [...]
Data is our NHS’ most precious asset – the next Prime Minister must protect it July 23, 2019 Britain is about to have a new government. And in a few months’ time, there could be a General Election resulting in the third government of 2019. On top of this, Brexit has still not been resolved. But in the fog of these political crises, we must not lose sight of innovations which, if adopted [...]
Microsoft invests $1bn in OpenAI to create artificial intelligence that can solve humanity’s worst problems July 22, 2019 Microsoft is set to pour $1bn (£800m) into OpenAI to develop general artificial intelligence, effectively by turning its Azure cloud into a supercomputer. The pair have agreed a multi-year exclusive partnership to develop a supercomputer of “unprecedented scale” to train and run ever-more advanced AI software. Read more: Microsoft opens flagship London store just minutes [...]
Game of drones: The founder of SenSat on solving construction problems by simulating reality July 22, 2019 “The internet connects all human knowledge, and for the first time in history, we can connect that human knowledge to the actual world we live in through our computers.” It’s at this point during my conversation with James Dean, the cooly-named co-founder of SenSat, that I start to grasp how ground-breaking his technology really is. [...]
Elon Musk reveals plans to connect human brains to computers July 17, 2019 Billionaire Elon Musk yesterday revealed plans to develop technology to allow human brains to connect with computers. Secretive “brain-machine interface” firm Neuralink was founded in 2017 to fight the “existential threat” of artificial intelligence developing further than humans. Read more: Tesla boss Elon Musk rebrands on Twitter as Daddy Dotcom At an event in California [...]
Now he’s the face of the £50 note, let’s look at the enduring genius of Alan Turing July 17, 2019 I cannot think of a man more deserving of commemoration by this nation than Alan Turing. It is enlivening that, in an era so dominated by differing ideals of what and who our society should champion, riven by irreconcilable divisions deep within our cultural psyche, such a man might have existed who could bridge at [...]