Samsung Research has led the latest effort in expanding the global AI research capabilities of Samsung Electronics and has converged its AI expertise with the creation of the new AI Centers. Samsung Research also oversaw the creation of the new AI Centers in Seoul last November and in Silicon Valley in January. With the addition of the three new AI Centers, Samsung Research will operate five AI Centers around the world.

Also, by securing global AI experts, Samsung Research plans to expand its number of advanced AI researchers to a total of about 1,000 globally by 2020.

“Samsung has a long history of pursuing innovation and we are excited to be bringing that same passion and technology leadership to AI,” said Hyun-suk Kim, President and Head of Samsung Research at the opening ceremony of the new AI Center in Cambridge. With the new AI Centers and recruitment of leading experts in the field, our aim is to be a game changer for the AI industry.”

Top Talent from AI Field to Help Lead New Centers

The Samsung AI Center-Cambridge will be led by Andrew Blake, previously Director of Microsoft’s Cambridge Laboratory, and a pioneer in the development of the theory and algorithms that can make it possible for computers to behave as seeing machines. With cooperation from distinguished experts in the field, such as Professor Maja Pantić (Imperial College), Samsung AI Center-Cambridge will play a pivotal role in advanced AI research for Samsung Research.

“This new Center signifies our commitment to the advancement of AI,” said Andrew Blake. “Our research will help us to better understand human behavior while exploring areas like emotion recognition, and further expand the boundaries of user-centric communication to develop AI technologies that ultimately improve people’s lives.”

Samsung AI Center-Toronto will be led by Dr. Larry Heck, Senior Vice President of Samsung Research America (SRA), and an expert in virtual personal assistant technologies and also the Leader of the SRA AI Center. The AI Center in Toronto will bolster its research efforts in core AI technologies with strategic cooperation from major universities in Canada.

Samsung AI Center-Moscow is expected to capitalize on Russia’s expertise in mathematics, physics, and other fundamental sciences. It plans to include leading AI experts such as Professor Dmitry Vetrov (Higher School of Economics) and Professor Victor Lempitsky (Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology) to lead its research on AI algorithms.

Key Principles Driving Samsung’s AI Vision

In its vision for AI, Samsung focuses on five core aspects to drive its research. These include AI that is: “user-centric,” realizing personalization through a multi-modal interface; “always learning,” through continuous self-learning from data; “always there,” as an ambient service; “always helpful,” with minimization of user intervention and response to requests; and “always safe,” ensuring user safety and privacy. As they work around these focuses, the new AI Centers will leverage cutting-edge research environments along with the regional strengths of the researchers to carry Samsung’s AI capabilities to new heights.

Through ongoing initiatives including hosting an AI Forum last year, Samsung has been cooperating closely with renowned AI scholars in preparing to set up research bases across areas of expertise. Samsung will continue to expand areas of expertise and technology across the globe, including of particular importance, the eastern area of the U.S.

In the coming years, Internet of Things (IoT) devices embedded with AI will generate a vast array of data that can provide fascinating insights about the lives of users, enabling them to take advantage of intelligent services optimized for their own personal preferences and behaviors. How AI-enabled devices provide consumers with the most optimized options will be critical to the success of AI technology for the near future. To provide a user-centric ecosystem, Samsung aims to build an AI platform under a common architecture that will not only scale quickly but also provide the deepest understanding of usage context and behaviors, making AI more relevant and useful.

For more details on Samsung Research and the global AI Centers, please visit the official Samsung Research webpage at http://research.samsung.com.

For example, in the home, when a user wakes up in the morning on a rainy day, the home lights will gradually brighten, while music fit for a rainy day is selected and played in the background. A cup of coffee will be prepared as soon as the user says “coffee” while stepping into the kitchen and the refrigerator will also recommend meal ideas for the day, asking the user whether he or she would like to buy ingredients online.

In the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, Samsung Electronics is uniquely positioned to bring this world of connected AI services to life, based on the almost half a billion connected devices the company sells every year. In fact, given the typical lifecycle of a device, there are more than a billion Samsung devices actively used around the world at any given time.

Samsung’s device portfolio also is the industry’s broadest, and includes mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and wearable devices, office devices such as PCs, signages and Samsung Flip, devices for the home such as Samsung Smart TVs, Family Hub and FlexWash and FlexDry, and much more.

At this year’s CES, Samsung highlighted its latest innovations in its vision to drive the Internet of Things (IoT) supported by AI. Samsung Smart TVs now integrated with Bixby, are able to play music and shows personalized for users, as well as show who is at the front door or what is inside the refrigerator. The Family Hub refrigerator, also integrated with AI, recognizes the voices of different family members and provides each of them with a personalized daily schedule.

Moving forward, Samsung will continue to remain focused on holistically integrating AI into a connected setting, such as the home or the office, in contrast to other players primarily pursuing implementation of AI on a few devices and services. In the following months, Samsung will integrate not only Samsung devices, but also IoT devices and sensors developed by external partners into the SmartThings eco-system, allowing a single SmartThings app to control everything. Furthermore, Samsung also plans to integrate AI into all its connected devices by 2020.

In the coming years, many IoT devices with AI support will generate a vast array of usage patterns and scenarios. How AI-enabled devices learn and analyze complex usage patterns and provide consumers with the most optimized options will be critical to the success of AI technology for the near future. In other words, the success of AI will boil down to how well the devices understand the users.

Therefore, Samsung’s perspective on AI is to build an eco-system that is user-centric rather than device-centric. To pursue that goal, we will start by building an AI platform under a common architecture that will not only scale quickly, but also provide the deepest understanding of usage context and behaviors, making AI more relevant and useful.

For the past decades, Samsung successfully introduced products and innovations by researching the lifestyle and behavior of global consumers. Paying respect to our heritage of user-centric product development, Samsung will begin an exciting journey open to boundless possibilities in new user experiences by integrating AI into the open IoT ecosystem it is currently developing. This journey will certainly be fascinating for us here at Samsung, but even more so for consumers, as Samsung takes major steps forward to bring consumers’ hopes and expectations to life.

by Larry Heck

Senior Vice President, Samsung Research America (SRA)