According to a recent press release, “Accenture has formed a strategic alliance with and made a minority investment in Malong Technologies, an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up headquartered in Shenzhen, China. Malong has been recognized by global companies and organizations and analyst firms as an AI pioneer and innovation leader. Through the alliance, Accenture’s Applied Intelligence practice and Malong will offer computer vision and product recognition capabilities to clients worldwide. The alliance gives Accenture a strategic AI presence in China and forms part of its wider regional growth strategy. Malong’s product recognition and auto-tagging technology, ProductAI®, lets machines ‘see’ physical objects the way a person does. Retailers can use it to make product checkouts much more efficient and allow their customers to shop for items by taking a picture of it with their smartphones. Other use cases include defect detection in manufacturing to drive quality, baggage scanning for improved safety, and analyzing medical images to help doctors make critical decisions faster.”
The release goes on, “As part of the alliance agreement, Accenture Applied Intelligence and Malong will pursue development of joint industry solutions and go-to-market activities. The agreement, in which Malong designates Accenture as its preferred systems integrator and consulting partner, will form a cornerstone of Accenture’s growing computer vision capabilities. It will provide services and solutions to organizations in any industry where objects need to be reliably recognized at a high-level, microscopic-level, or x-ray level. The investment in Malong is Accenture Ventures’ first investment in China. China is already a leading player in AI funding, the number of AI startups, and the number of AI-related patents. The Malong alliance and investment will give Accenture a strategic AI presence in this increasingly innovative and competitive market and enable it to continue its growth as the enterprise AI partner of choice.”
Read more at Business Wire.
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