Vietnam-based FPT and Quebec-based Mila announced the renewal of a three-year strategic partnership that will see the two organizations explore collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI) research models, while promoting responsible AI.
FPT is Vietnam’s largest IT service provider, with more than 40,000 employees and recording total revenue of $1.87 billion USD ($2.51 billion CAD) last year. It delivers services in advanced analytics, AI, digital platforms, cloud, IoT, hyper-automation, and low-code, among others.
Professor Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal founded Mila, an AI research institute that brings together over 1,000 researchers specializing in machine learning. Mila is a non-profit organization specializing in the field of deep learning, particularly in language modelling, machine translation, object recognition, and generative models.
FPT and Mila have collaborated on multiple research projects on causality, language models, voice coding, and more.
FPT and Mila will collaborate on research projects related to large language models and natural language processing. The two organizations promised to promote responsible AI, which they defined as employing AI with good intentions to empower people and organizations.
Both sides will contribute to developing guidelines, best practices, and ethical standards that will promote transparency, fairness, accountability, and privacy in AI applications. The continued partnership seeks to solve complex problems and pioneer an AI ecosystem that fosters sustainable growth, human development, and social progress.
With recent sudden advances in AI, the fear that the technology could overtake peoples’ ability to control it has led to increased conversations about the need for legislation and standards.
In recent weeks, Bengio has signed letters warning of “the risk of extinction” from the use of AI and for a six-month pause on the use of advanced AI. Mila has also cautioned against the use of AI in harmful contexts.
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As well, the Quebec government said in April it would invest $21 million over three years into Mila to further advance its work on socially beneficial AI.
Since the beginning of the partnership in June 2020, FPT and Mila have collaborated on multiple research projects on causality, language models, voice coding, and more.
With strategic consultation from Mila, FPT has established the first and largest AI Research Hub in Quy Nhon, Vietnam. With an investment of over $85 million, the complex will be a research, development, and learning facility for 20,000 tech personnel.
The FPT partnership is one of a number Mila maintains. The institute has partnered with Intel, AI Sweden, and IBM, among others.