The 2022 AI & Big Data Expo World Series, which took place in London, Amsterdam and Santa Clara, saw some of the biggest names across artificial intelligence and big data share their insights, with great discussions – and attendances – delivered. The implementation of the next generation of enterprise technologies will set the leaders apart from the laggards – and forward-thinking businesses and business leaders will begin to see the benefits of creating a future-proof strategy. The AI & Big Data Expo is just one of several co-located events in the TechEx series, and one of the aspects which makes this event series stand out is its breadth of technological focus, alongside events around the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, edge computing, cybersecurity and cloud, and digital transformation.
In total, the three events from Encore Media, as part of the TechEx portfolio of events, saw upwards of 18,000 attendees, with more than 650 exhibitors and more than 550 speakers. Part of this can be put down to the event industry roaring back with in-person gatherings following the disruption of Covid. Yet disruption often forces innovation, and those who were not able to make it in-person could also view the AI & Big Data Expo sessions virtually.
Delegates emphasised several key aspects of the AI & Big Data Expo event series, from the organisation of the event to the breadth of exhibitors, to the range of content; in particular, the ability to discuss technologies at a high executive level without the baggage of tech jargon.
Here are the highlights from each of the 2022 events:
AI & Big Data Expo Europe – Amsterdam, 21-22 September 2022
The AI & Big Data Expo Europe event in September, which saw more than 6,000 attendees, 200 exhibitors and 150 speakers, had a focus on AI implementation across different industries. Stephan van Beek and Paul Lambrechts, principal application engineers at MathWorks, gave a keynote presentation on enabling AI in industry, consumer products and healthcare, while Yury Brunt at AVEVA Select Benelux presented on enterprise energy management for manufacturing. Julio Peironcely, global director insights and analytics at Danone, opened the event with a journey from turning AI into ROI for the food giant – and tips for where to start with enterprise adoption of AI.
A good example of blending the technical with the line of business was with Amazon Web Services, who exhibited its AI services for no-code and low-code machine learning. Felipe Chies, senior business development manager for AI/ML, emphasised the importance of democratising these technologies to help businesses. “If we want machine learning to be as expansive as we really want it to be, we need to make it much more accessible to people who aren’t machine learning practitioners,” Chies told AI News.
Feedback from attendees noted the variety of content, the mix of companies in the exhibition hall, from enterprises to start-ups, the ability to virtually participate, and the different stages and high quality of presentations.
AI & Big Data Expo North America – Santa Clara, 5-6 October 2022
The North America leg of the series, which took place in October and saw more than 6,000 attendees, 250 exhibitors and 250 speakers, explored how organisations could take the next step in their AI strategies and implementations. Daniel Wu, head of AI and ML commercial banking at JP Morgan Chase & Co, spoke of building enterprise AI excellence; moving from solving specific problems to driving exponential impact across enterprises. Bjorn Austraat, head of AI acceleration at Truist, offered pragmatic real-world tips from turning AI ideas into enterprise value, and explored working methods to achieve this, from agile to waterfall. One of the most interesting case studies came from global transportation and logistics firm UPS, whose data science and machine learning director Laura Patel told delegates how AI had been successfully implemented to drive business value.
Feedback from attendees noted the breadth of key technological topics in the conference, as well as the strength of exhibitors and the diversity of technologies across the TechEx event series.
AI & Big Data Expo Global – London, 1-2 December 2022
One of the primary themes at the Global event in December, which saw more than 6,000 attendees, 200 exhibitors and more than 150 speakers, was around the ethical implications of AI. This was particularly prescient given the lines feel blurred around areas such as art and photography – not to mention ChatGPT, the revolutionary model which interacts and performs tasks in a conversational way.
In the session entitled ‘Keeping it Ethical in AI’, panellists from the BBC, BT Group and the AI for Good Foundation among others grappled with the issues, from beating inbuilt bias, to corporate mechanisms, to mitigating the risk of job losses. A recurring theme was that AI was a ‘socio-technical’ challenge, and that the latter was easier to solve than the former.
Crucially, the panellists argued, the goalposts keep moving, and continuous iteration and innovation is required. Take bias as an example; what was acceptable before might not be in the future. “There’s a risk if we take the solutionist approach, we bake a type of bias into AI, then we have problems,” explained James Fletcher, responsible application of AI leader at the BBC. “We would need to re-evaluate our assumptions.”
Attendee feedback noted the good variety of topic choices and high level of sessions, the enthusiasm of the event organisers, as well as the accessibility of topics.
The 2023 AI and Big Data Expo Series will consist of three events:
- AI and Big Data Expo North America 17-18 May 2023 (Santa Clara Convention Center, CA)
- AI and Big Data Expo Europe 26-27 September 2023 (RAI, Amsterdam)
- AI and Big Data Expo Global 30 November – 1 December (Olympia, London)
