Tech
ITU’s AI for Good Global Summit 2024 puts tech to the test for people and planet
Global leaders and innovators in artificial intelligence (AI) will join the humanitarian community at the AI for Good Global Summit 2024 in Geneva, Switzerland on 30-31 May to explore how new technology can drive sustainable development.
This year’s edition of the AI for Good summit event will showcase innovations in generative AI, robotics, and brain-machine interfaces that can accelerate progress in areas such as climate action, accessibility, health, and disaster response.
Summit speakers, including some of the world’s foremost AI luminaries, will explore the latest breakthroughs in AI and examine actions to ensure that AI works to humanity’s benefit.
“ITU’s annual AI for Good Global Summit brings together a diverse set of voices to look at the latest AI developments and find ways to ensure this technology remains a force for good, driving inclusive growth and sustainable and equitable progress for all,” said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin. “This summit and our year-round AI for Good platform are powerful tools for accelerating progress in our race to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.”
On 29 May, discussions dedicated to AI governance will explore the surge in global efforts to craft AI policy, regulation, and governance frameworks. AI Governance Day – bringing together representatives of governments, companies, academia, civil society, and UN agencies – aims to forge pathways to transform dialogue around AI governance into impactful action.
The UN platform for AI powered by ITU
AI for Good identifies practical applications of AI to accelerate progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals and connects AI innovators with public and private-sector decision-makers to help scale up AI solutions globally.
ITU, the UN specialized agency for information and communication technologies, organizes the yearly AI for Good Global Summit together with 40 partner UN agencies. The event is co-convened by the Government of Switzerland.
AI for Good discussions foster international cooperation and innovation to create equitable access to new technologies. The discussions support ITU in spurring timely policy exchanges, developing best practices and technical standards, and catalysing partnerships for AI solutions to contribute to sustainable development.
Thought leaders and thought-controlled machines
In addition to talks by AI thought leaders, this year’s summit will host machine learning masterclasses, curated by experts for experts, covering topics from deepfakes and climate change to brain-machine interfaces, AI for public services, explainable AI, and machine learning in communication networks.
Start-ups, young people and creatives will demonstrate their ideas at the AI for Good Innovation Factory Grand Finale, Robotics for Good Youth Challenge, and Canvas of the Future art contest.
The summit’s exhibition space will feature an array of cutting-edge demos, including AI for accessibility, collective drone swarms, bio-inspired rescue robots, a RoboCup robot football tournament, performance-boosting exoskeletons, and AI-inspired art.
Exhibition highlights will include demos of brain-machine interfaces – an AI advancement that promises to open new frontiers for neurotechnology. A press conference on brain-machine interfaces will highlight new technologies enabling mind-controlled movement and communication for persons with disabilities, offering insights on how progress in the field could impact the future of human performance, mental health, and wellbeing.
The 2024 edition of the summit comes in conjunction with the WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event. The World Summit on Information Society event brings together the world’s digital development community to discuss concrete actions to advance sustainable development.
The AI for Good Global Summit will take place at the International Conference Centre Geneva (CICG).
Registration for media accreditation for reporters wishing to cover the AI for Good Global Summit is open. Registration for the public is also open and is free of charge. Registrants can attend either in person or online to connect with an expected 2,500 participants in Geneva and over 25,000 professionals worldwide who are part of the AI for Good Neural Network. Capacity is limited and early registration is encouraged. Confirmed speakers include:
- Doreen Bogdan-Martin – ITU Secretary-General
- Geoffrey Hinton – Advisor for the Learning in Machines & Brains, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (presenting remotely)
- Sam Altman – CEO, OpenAI (presenting remotely)
- HRH Princess Beatrice – United Kingdom
- Abeba Birhane – Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI, Mozilla Foundation, Time 100 AI
- Stuart Russell – Professor of Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley, and author of “Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control”
- Daron Acemoglu – Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and New York Times bestselling author of “Why Nations Fail: Power, Prosperity, and Poverty”
- Gary Marcus – Scientist, best-selling author, and serial entrepreneur, New York University
- Nicholas Thompson – CEO, The Atlantic
- Fatmah Baothman – CEO, Alothaim Investment AI and R&D Company
- Vincent Vanhoucke – Senior Director of Robotics, Google DeepMind
- Mo Gawdat – Former Chief Business Officer at Google X, and best-selling author of “Scary Smart” and “Solve for Happy”
See all of the AI for Good Global Summit 2024 speakers here. Demos of robots, drones, and brain-machine interfaces include:
- Mind-controlled wheelchair (Inclusive Brains)
- Bio-inspired amphibious snake robot for pollution detection in lakes (EPFL)
- Snake-like robot for saving disaster victims and inspecting confined spaces (RoBoa)
- World’s first self-stabilizing walking exoskeleton (Wandercraft)
- Highly dexterous bionic hand (Esper Bionics)
- Vision-controlled quadrotors for disaster response (University of Zurich)
- First human-centric, multi-purpose robot for logistics (Agility Robotics)
- Brain-computer interface speech-generating device (Cognixion)
- Rapidly deployable life-saving sensor robots (Squishy Robotics)
- Brain-controlled hand exoskeleton (Brain Center at the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers)
- Glasses empowering blind people with more mobility (ilumen)
- Social robot supporting children with neurodevelopmental disorders (Leka APF France Handicap)
The AI for Good Global Summit 2024 is supported by Immersion4 (Diamond sponsor), DLA Piper (Diamond sponsor), AWS (Gold sponsor), Alibaba DAMO Academy (Gold sponsor), ZTE (Gold sponsor), and KUKA (Networking sponsor).
Apple , opens new tab plans to spend more than $30 billion under a multi-year chip supply deal with Broadcom, bolstering its U.S. sourcing as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to expand domestic chip manufacturing.
Broadcom shares rose more than 4%, while Apple shares were down marginally.
Apple said on Wednesday the deal, which was struck earlier this week and runs through 2031, covers FBAR filters – or radio-frequency chips used for wireless connectivity in its devices – that it had been developing with Broadcom since at least 2023.
Broadcom will invest $1.5 billion to expand its Fort Collins, Colorado, factory under the deal, which Apple said would result in the production of at least 15 billion chips and support its work with the Trump administration to source more components domestically.
“The cutting-edge components built in Fort Collins are essential to delivering the incredible performance and connectivity our customers expect, and we’re proud to deepen our investments in U.S.-based suppliers that share our commitment to excellence and innovation,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
“We’re grateful to the president and his administration for supporting important projects like this.”
In August 2025, Apple raised its U.S. investment commitment to $600 billion over four years, adding $100 billion to a previously announced spending plan.
China is planning to allow the country’s top AI companies to buy a limited number of Nvidia’s, opens new tab H200 chips, the Information reported on Wednesday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Chinese officials have told Alibaba, opens new tab, ByteDance and DeepSeek in recent weeks that they may soon receive permission to buy some H200 chips, the report said.
Shares of Nvidia rose 1% after the report.
The chip giant did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, nor did the U.S. commerce department, which oversees exports of advanced AI chips overseas.
China’s commerce ministry also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek did not respond outside of regular business hours.
The U.S. government has allowed Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips to China, and licensed about 10 Chinese firms to buy the chips. However, Chinese officials, keen to nurture domestic suppliers, have withheld approval so far.
Reuters reported in March that Nvidia had won Beijing’s approval to sell the chips to China, citing sources, and around the same time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also told CNBC that the company had clearance from China.
Beijing is still determining the exact number of Nvidia chips to approve, and it could amount to fewer than 200,000 in total, the Information said, adding that was less than half of what the companies requested earlier this year.
Last month, Reuters exclusively reported that Nvidia told Chinese clients its new “Vera” central processors for AI data centres could be available as soon as August and that they can begin placing orders.
Nvidia’s market share in China has effectively fallen to zero, Huang said in October, hurt by U.S. export controls and Beijing’s push for self-reliance in key technologies.
The potential shift in China’s stance underscores the growing computing capacity crunch that the country’s tech companies are facing.
A team of software testers found that Australian social media platforms did not request age proof for any of 50 accounts that declared themselves to be 16, a result that leaves the country’s world-first under-16 ban “ineffective” at the most basic screening stage, according to a study seen by Reuters.
Since December, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube have been required to bar people under 16 and take “reasonable steps” to verify age, with regulators recommending multiple layered checks. But the new research, conducted by those who advised the nationwide curb, shows that the initial vetting step, which estimates a user’s age from general online activity, is failing to flag young people for tougher verification.
The testers, who last year trialled age-assurance software on more than 1,000 Australians, opened 50 new accounts after the law took effect and set the age as 16. None of the platforms asked for additional proof, the researchers told Reuters. The findings highlight a flaw that has been largely overlooked while public debate has focused on photo-based age-estimation tools.
The ban’s rollout has been widely criticised after surveys indicated that most under-16s still access the platforms. The government last month doubled the maximum fine and warned of possible court action against tech giants, accusing them of setting the system up to fail. Platforms have countered that they are simply following the regulator’s guidance, which prioritises low-friction checks and prevents reliance on government ID alone due to privacy concerns.
Some advisers to the original trial said they had repeatedly warned that the testing process ignored real-world circumvention, including minors entering false birthdates. “We did want to talk about circumvention, but we kept on being told that that wasn’t part of the actual trial,” Colm Gannon of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children told Reuters. A youth digital rights academic involved in a longer-term study of the ban said more impressive results might emerge once platforms move to age-inference methods later in the year. The regulator maintains that the recommended layered approach, if implemented correctly, ensures no single point of failure.
Two US soccer team staff members suspended by FIFA for Belgium World Cup game
Inside the Haaland machine
‘Little disappointed in our batting unit’: Miraz rues Tigers’ ODI opener defeat against Zimbabwe
-
Bangladesh2 weeks agoData Breaches Expose Millions, Reveal Gaps in Bangladesh’s Privacy Law
-
Business2 weeks agoIMF lowers 2026 world growth forecast
-
Business2 weeks agoRyanair loses appeals against Italy’s COVID aid to airlines in EU Court
-
China2 weeks ago
China plans to let top AI firms buy limited Nvidia H200 chips, the Information reports
-
Business2 weeks agoNet forex reserves climb to $27.92b
-
Bangladesh2 weeks agoBIBM study finds uneven anti-money laundering enforcement in Bangladesh
-
Entertainment2 weeks agoSummer eye makeup trends every Bengali woman will love
-
Sports2 weeks ago‘Little disappointed in our batting unit’: Miraz rues Tigers’ ODI opener defeat against Zimbabwe