Sara: Saudi Arabia's First Interactive Robot

Saudi Arabia unveils its first interactive robot at LEAP 2023. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Saudi Arabia unveils its first interactive robot at LEAP 2023. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT

Sara: Saudi Arabia's First Interactive Robot

Saudi Arabia unveils its first interactive robot at LEAP 2023. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Saudi Arabia unveils its first interactive robot at LEAP 2023. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Sara, Saudi Arabia's first interactive robot, welcomed attendees at LEAP 2023 conference, which was launched in Riyadh on Monday.

Sara was manufactured in cooperation between Saudi Digital and Qss Company. It can communicate with all visitors, interact with them, perform popular dance moves, and respond to visitors' inquiries.

The robot boasts a camera that works with artificial intelligence, can recognize the distance of people standing in front of it and starts dialogue after a visitor addresses it with the phrase "Hello Sara."

It also contains a pre-trained model that recognizes different Saudi dialects, analyses and understands sentences, then provides the appropriate answer and sends it in text.

The second edition of Leap 2023 was launched at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center under the theme "Towards New Horizons."

LEAP was organized by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in conjunction with Tahaluf, a strategic joint venture co-owned by Informa PLC and the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming (SAFCSP).

It aims to consolidate and strengthen the Kingdom's advanced position as a hub for technology and innovation in the region.



Amazon Doubles Down on AI Startup Anthropic with $4 bln Investment

The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York City, US, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York City, US, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
TT

Amazon Doubles Down on AI Startup Anthropic with $4 bln Investment

The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York City, US, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York City, US, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic said on Friday it has raised an additional $4 billion investment from longtime backer Amazon.com, bringing the e-commerce giant's total investment to $8 billion, underscoring Big Tech's growing genAI investments.

Amazon will maintain its position as a minority investor, the company said. Its AWS unit will also be Anthropic's official cloud provider.

Anthropic also said it is working with AWS' Annapurna Labs on the development of future generations of Amazon's Trainium chips and plans to train its foundational models on the hardware, Reuters reported.

Britain's competition regulator had said in September Amazon's partnership with Anthropic will not be referred for a deeper probe as it did not fall under its jurisdiction.

Anthropic, which was co-founded by former OpenAI executives and siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, said last year it had also secured a $500 million investment from Alphabet, which promised to invest another $1.5 billion over time.