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lunes, 20 de agosto de 2018

You Should Know These 20 Technology Leaders Driving China's A.I. Revolution


China’s leading technology companies are on fire, heavily investing in artificial intelligence and building true global presences. McKinsey recently reported that academic and research institutions in the country publish more cited research papers than the US, UK, or any other global leader in AI, producing nearly 10,000 papers in 2015 alone.

Backed by strong government mandates and billions of dollars of both private and public investments, China is challenging the US for position of global AI leader. Fearful of competition, the US government is considering placing restrictions on Chinese investments in AI and technology in the United States. In many sectors, such as healthcare, China may already be ahead of America in applying AI to critical public issues.

You might recognize names like Andrew Ng, Sebastian Thrun, Geoffrey Hinton, or Yann LeCun as important figures in AI, but few Westerners can name the key leaders driving AI innovation in China and at Chinese companies globally. These executives, entrepreneurs, professors, and researchers helm the most important Chinese tech companies and research labs and are respected widely for their technical expertise and accomplishments.

We’ve researched and curated 20 of the most important figures in the Chinese AI landscape that you should know: 

1. KAI-FU LEE
Co-Founder of Sinovation Ventures, Former President of Google China

Kai-Fu Lee is a globally recognized technology leader with executive experience at Apple, Microsoft, and Google. He got his BS in Computer Science from Columbia University and his PhD from Carnegie Mellon. Lee established Google China prior to co-founding Sinovation Ventures, a venture capital firm actively funding technology and AI startups in the US and China.

With celebrity status in China and over 50 million followers on Chinese social networks, Lee has become an oracle in predicting trends in Chinese tech. Lee told CNBC recently that artificial intelligence is the “singular thing that will be larger than all of human tech revolutions added together, including electricity, the industrial revolution, internet, and mobile internet.”

2. QI LU
Group President & COO, Baidu


Qi Lu was hired by Baidu to lead the company’s strategic efforts in AI and push forward integration and collaboration within the company. Every Baidu business unit, including AI teams working on autonomous driving, reports to Lu. A spokesperson from Baidu stated: “With Dr. Lu on board, we are confident that our strategy will be executed smoothly and Baidu will become a world-class technology company and global leader in AI.”

Prior to joining Baidu, Lu was personally recruited by Steve Ballmer to join Microsoft where he eventually became EVP of the Applications & Services Group. Lu started his professional career in IBM’s research labs, before joining Yahoo and rising to EVP of the Search & Advertising Group. He completed a BS in Computer Science at Fudan University and was invited by Carnegie Mellon professor Edmund M. Clarke to pursue his PhD at CMU.


3. HAIFENG WANG
Head of AI Group, Baidu

After Andrew Ng’s departure from Baidu, Haifeng Wang took over as leader of the expanded AI Group (AIG), consisting of
  • Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning, 
  • Big Data Lab, 
  • Silicon Valley AI Lab, 
  • Augmented Reality Lab, 
  • Natural Language Unit, 
  • AI Platform Unit, and 
  • a few other departments.
Wang’s technical specialty is natural language processing (NLP) and machine translation and he has authored over 100 academic papers in AI. He applies his expertise to Baidu’s efforts in
  • NLP, 
  • computer vision, 
  • speech recognition, 
  • knowledge graphs, 
  • personalized recommendations, and 
  • deep learning. 
Wang is also an adjunct professor at Harbin Institute of Technology where he received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Computer Science.

4. TONG ZHANG
Executive Director of AI Lab, Tencent



The battle for top AI talent is incredibly fierce. Tong Zhang was poached from Baidu by Tencent last year to lead Tencent’s newly established AI lab. Formerly he was head of Baidu’s Big Data Lab, worked at IBM and Yahoo, and was a professor at Rutgers University.

With a team of over 200 engineers, Zhang is focused on developing Tencent’s capabilities in machine learning, computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing and applying new AI technologies to the company’s vast array of popular consumer products like WeChat.

5. JINGREN ZHOU
Chief Scientist and Vice President of Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba


Alibaba Cloud launched in 2009 and is now Alibaba’s fastest growing business unit. Similar to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Alibaba Cloud, also called Aliyun, emerged out of the company’s need for enormous computing power to handle millions of online shopping transactions.

Jingren Zhou leads big data and AI research at Alibaba Cloud’s Institute of Data Science Technology (iDST). In this role, he drives Alibaba’s AI technologies in speech, natural language, image and video processing, and large-scale machine learning.

Prior to joining Alibaba, Zhou was an engineering manager at Microsoft in charge of developing the big data computation platform supporting Windows, Office, and Bing. He received his BS from the University of Science and Technology of China and his PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University.

6. XIAOFE HE
President, DiDi Research


DiDi Chuxing is the “Uber of China”, with over 50TB of real-time data and over 9 billion routes driven per day. DiDi Research, the “brains of Didi Chuxing”, is a machine learning research institute set up by the company to predict demand, reduce surge impact, and also develop self-driving car technology.

President Xiaofe He got his BS in Computer Science from Zhejiang University and PhD from University of Chicago. Prior to helming DiDi Research, he worked as a research scientist and President of Yahoo Research Labs and joined Zhejiang University as a professor focused on applying mathematics and data analysis to solve important problems in pattern recognition, multimedia, and computer vision.

7. YUANQING LIN
Head of Baidu Research, Baidu


As Head of Baidu Research, Yuanqin Lin manages Baidu’s research labs, which include the

Along with Wei Xu, he will be leading Baidu’s contributions to China’s government-funded National Engineering Laboratory of Deep Learning Technology that is co-helmed by Tsinghua & Beihang University.

Prior to Baidu, Lin was the head of Media Analytics at NEC Labs America where he led teams focusing on computer vision research for mobile search and driverless cars. Lin received his MS degree in Optical Engineering from Tsinghua University and his PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of Pennsylvania.

8. PINPIN ZHU
President & CTO, Xiaoi


Xiaoi is China’s leading platform for conversational AI, powering the majority of the country’s bot and virtual assistant experiences. Established in Shanghai in 2001, the company’s technologies are used by hundreds of medium to large enterprises, government entities, and over 500 million users collectively.

Pinpin Zhu’s numerous patents in the space – including ones for “Chatting Robot System” and “SMS Robot System” – drove Xiaoi’s technical dominance in conversational interfaces. In addition to running Xiaoi, Zhu is also a Doctor of Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been appointed to China National Information Technology Standardization Committee, and has received numerous awards and accolades for his contributions to the field.

9. WEI XU
Distinguished Scientist, Baidu


In a company full of highly credentialed scientists, researchers, and engineers, Wei Xu is the only one with the title “Distinguished Scientist”. He is highly respected for his technical chops within the company due to his work on PaddlePaddle, a deep learning toolkit which was open sourced in late 2016. In development for over three years, PaddlePaddle is used to power search rankings, targeted advertising, image classification, translation, and self-driving cars.

Xu received his Bachelor’s degree at Tsinghua University, his MS from Carnegie Mellon, and was previously a researcher at NEC Labs and Facebook before joining Baidu.

10. WANLI MIN
Principal Data Scientist, Alibaba


Wanli Min led the research and development of Alibaba Cloud’s (Aliyun) artificial intelligence system, named Little Ai. Ai has been deployed by Alibaba internally to support customer service and traffic pattern predictions for the company’s flagship e-commerce business. Min also used machine learning to predict the winner of a top-rated Chinese reality TV show called “I Am Singer” and helped city planners in Guangdong province optimize traffic lights in real-time to reduce congestion.

Min entered college at the age of 14 and received his Bachelors from the University of Science & Technology of China and a PhD in Statistics from the University of Chicago.

11. KUN JING
General Manager of Duer, Baidu


Duer is Baidu’s answer to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant. The conversational AI platform powers virtual assistant capabilities in a number of devices, ranging from XiaoYu, China’s version of the Amazon Echo, to voice-activated smart televisions.

Kun Jing leads the Duer business unit. Prior to joining Baidu, Jing was Microsoft’s R&D Director and created Xiaoice, a popular chatbot that went viral on Tencent’s WeChat and Sina’s Weibo. Xiaoice has over 20 million registered users who interact with the bot an average of 60 times a month, earning it the rank of Weibo’s top influencer.

12. DONG YU
Deputy Director of AI Lab, Tencent


Hired as deputy head of Tencent’s AI Lab, Dong Yu co-runs the new lab with Tong Zhang and spearheads research in speech recognition and natural language understanding. Prior to joining Tencent, Yu was the principal researcher at Microsoft Research Institute’s Speech and Dialog Group, an adjunct professor at Zhejiang University, a visiting professor at University of Science and Technology of China, and a visiting researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He received a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University and a PhD in Computer Science from Idaho University.

“I’m excited to join AI Lab,” Yu shares. “Over the past decade, Tencent has accumulated abundant experience in application scenarios, developed a massive data bank, established powerful computing capabilities, and built an outstanding team of technology experts; all which have helped form the foundation of in-depth research and AI application at Tencent today.”

13. ADAM COATES
Director of Silicon Valley AI Lab, Baidu


Coates received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University and has worked on everything from computer vision for autonomous cars, deep learning for speech recognition, and machine learning for helicopter acrobatics. At Baidu, he worked on DeepSpeech, a speech recognition and transcription engine that performs as well as native Mandarin speakers, and DeepVoice, a text-to-speech synthesis engine that generates believable human-like audio.

Coates is particularly excited about putting AI in the hands of real-world consumers. When he was selected by MIT Technology Review as one of 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2015, he explained that “in rapidly developing economies like in China, there are many people who will be connecting to the Internet for the first time through a mobile phone. Having a way to interact with a device or get the answer to a question as easily as talking to a person is even more powerful to them. I think of Baidu’s customers as having a greater need for artificial intelligence than myself.”

14. KAI YU
Founder & CEO, Horizon Robotics


Formerly head of Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning, Kai Yu left Baidu to start Beijing-based startup Horizon Robotics. Funded by leading investors like Yuri Milner and Sequoia Capital, Yu’s mission is to become the “Android of Robotics,” a pervasive AI system that powers all of our smart devices. Unlike other Chinese tech giants which dominate in the cloud, Horizon aims to adapt AI to every piece of hardware in the physical world.
Horizon has launched two platforms to date: 
  • Anderson for smart homes and 
  • Hugo for smart driving. 
Anderson imbues home appliances with capabilities such as facial recognition and automatic ordering, while Hugo is an advanced driver assistance system that performs real-time pedestrian and object detection even in adverse weather conditions.

Yu received his BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Nanjing University and his PhD in Computer Science from Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen in Germany.

15. JING WANG
Former Senior Vice President of Engineering, Baidu


While at Baidu, Jing Wang managed over 5,000 engineers in numerous business units, including the ones he founded:
  • Mobile, 
  • Cloud Computing, 
  • Big Data, 
  • Cybersecurity, 
  • Baidu Research, and 
  • Autonomous Driving. 
He left the company shortly after Andrew Ng’s resignation to start his own self-driving car company, and is widely credited with driving forward Baidu’s progress in the space.

Prior to joining Baidu, Wang was Deputy Head of Google’s Shanghai engineering office as well as eBay China’s CTO and R&D general manager. He received his Bachelor’s from the University of Science & Technology of China and his Master’s in Computer Science from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

16. BO ZHANG
Professor of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University


As a professor at Tsinghua University, Bo Zhang’s research interests include AI, machine learning, pattern recognition, knowledge engineering, and robotics. His notable academic achievements include advances in robotic task and motion planning, probabilistic logic neural networks (PLN), and machine learning algorithms for image retrieval and classification and webpage structure mining.

Along with Baidu and Wei Li of Beihang University, Tsinghua was selected to co-lead the government-funded National Engineering Laboratory of Deep Learning. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and received his Bachelor’s in Automatic Control from Tsinghua University.

17. HUA WU
Technical Chief of NLP Group, Baidu


 Hua Wu contributed a number of technical breakthroughs in 
  • natural language processing (NLP), 
  • dialogue systems, and 
  • neural machine translation (NMT) 21
in her seven year tenure at Baidu. The New York Times hailed her research work in multi-task learning as “pathbreaking” and she was able to successfully deploy her invention at scale to hundreds of millions of users of Baidu’s translation products. Wu is also responsible for the technology behind Baidu’s conversational AI, Duer.

Wu received her PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-chairs leading academic AI conferences such as ACL and IJCAI.

18. WEI LI
President and Professor of Computer Science, Beihang University


Along with Bo Zhang of Tsinghua University and senior executives from Baidu, Wei Li was selected to co-lead China’s National Engineering Laboratory of Deep Learning. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and also president of Beihang University. Li has won numerous accolades and prizes for his technical contributions in artificial intelligence and network computing.

Li graduated from the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of Beijing University and received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh.

19. HONGBIN ZHA
Professor of Machine Learning, Peking University 


“China hopes to leap-frog the US and other Western countries by vast and fast investment in the AI industry,” says Hongbin Zha, AI researcher and professor at Beijing’s Peking University. Zha directs the Key Lab of Machine Perception at Peking University and collaborates with Microsoft Research Asia alongside other AI leaders across the continent. His research interests include computer vision theory, virtual reality, and robotics.

He received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Hefei University of Technology in China and his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Kyushu University in Japan.

20. YUNJI CHEN


In 2015, Yunji Chen was selected by MIT Technology Review as one of their top 35 Innovators Under 35. Described as “iconoclastic and cosmopolitan”, he was chosen for his work in designing specialized deep-learning processors which dramatically reduce the computational costs of large-scale machine learning. His dream is to enable even common cell phones to be “as powerful as Google Brain”.

Chen entered college at age 14 and completed his PhD with lightning speed by the age of 24. He’s now chief architect of the Godson-3C, a microprocessing chip that reduces energy requirements for computers to recognize objects and translate languages and is developing the Cambricon, a brain-inspired processor chip that models human nerve cells and synapses to facilitate deep learning. The research team is led by Chen and his younger brother, Tianshi Chen, two of the youngest professors at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adelyn is the Head of Marketing at TOPBOTS. She's got a decade of experience growing billion-dollar companies like Eventbrite, NextDoor, and Amazon. Follow her on Twitter at @adelynzhou to learn how to accelerate your growth with AI.

ORIGINAL: TopBots
Jun 18, 2017
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jueves, 2 de marzo de 2017

Future of Farming and Technology Grow Together

In the Salad Bowl, Silicon Prairie and other top producing farmlands of the world, attention is turning to technology and education to bring agriculture into the Digital Age.

California’s first tech pioneers didn’t innovate in a garage. They worked out of a barn. These early risk-takers aggressively developed effective farming tools in the 1800s, turning California into an agricultural powerhouse in a few short decades.

One of the central places of this history, Salinas, CA, is still a hotbed for agriculture technology innovation. It has become a world leader in leveraging
  • cloud computing, 
  • robotics and 
  • the Internet of Things 
into farming practices.
In the 1800s, Salinas residents pushed modernization forward. They mechanized aspects of farming and radically increased yields. During the 1920s, almost overnight they shifted from commodities like wheat to high value vegetables and fruits. This entrepreneurial spirit earned Salinas Valley the nickname, “Salad Bowl of the World.”

Along the way, innovative land owners and hard-working migrants together turned Salinas into one of the world’s top agricultural areas of the world. John Steinbeck immortalized the struggles and triumphs in novels like East of Eden.

Salinas Valley is special for many reasons. The climate is mild and allows crops to grow year-round. Water is especially abundant in the aquifers under the valley. In the 1800s, farmers could ship their goods from a Pacific Ocean port just 12 miles away or send it up and down El Camino Real (now, Highway 101), then the most important road on the west coast. A century and a half later, just 90 miles away from Salinas, sprawling orchards transformed into Silicon Valley, the world’s technology capitol.


The Ag and Tech Worlds Collide
Many farmers are quick to point out they’ve been using laptops and phones just like everyone else, and many of their processes are tracked or managed digitally. Despite the close proximity between Salinas and Silicon Valley, local farmers wonder if agriculture-technology will ever bare big fruit.

A combination of newer technologies, however, just might change all of that, according to Hank Giclas, who oversees technology planning for Western Growers, a trade group representing farmers in California, Arizona and Colorado.

“One of the most fundamental shifts has been wireless access to the Internet and the cloud,” he said. “It gives farmers much greater insight into their operations, and they’re able to find efficiencies and optimize like never before.”

When Western Growers opened its Center for Innovation and Technology in downtown Salinas in 2015, the organization felt it was the right time to address the needs of its members to help spark ag tech innovation. The center provides support for
  • startups, 
  • investors and 
  • growers 
to develop solutions in areas ranging from 
  • computer vision, 
  • cloud, 
  • robotics, 
  • drones, 
  • automation, 
  • food safety and 
  • plant breeding.
“I’m really interested in the rapid shifts in sensing technology,” Glicas added. “There’s a whole new wave of precision farming that’s coming to the fresh produce sector through sensor technology, and we need to sort that out.”

Sensors that measure precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, sunshine and wind can, in various ways, can make fertilizing, watering and harvesting more efficient. Farmers and technologists are working together to understand how to use sensors and cloud technologies that leverage real-time and historical data, all to help make decisions at critical times.


Venture capital has been flowing into precision agriculture in areas like drone technology, automation and robotics. Dan Hodgson, a North Dakota venture capitalist who runs the firm Farm Quality Assurance, offered a similar viewpoint about the high-tech initiatives coming down the pike.

“One thing we’re interested is machine communication,” he said. “We are working with spectral soil analysis so that we can bring infrared and X-ray images of fields quickly, at a lower cost, to farmers.”

Hodgson explained that information technology has had a limited role in farming, not because innovation wasn’t feasible, but agriculture is a different kind of market.

“The cost of market adoption is tremendous in agriculture,” he said. “The distribution system is narrow, and new products have to work well right from the start. There’s not a lot of room for creating products just to see if they sell.”

Hodgson pointed out that by using wireless, cloud computing and other technologies, farmers and markets are accessing better information, and this is advancing agriculture.


Hodgson’s company is one of many in Fargo, North Dakota, a city that has emerged as a Silicon Prarie hotspot and hosts Microsoft’s third largest campus. Many in Fargo’s ag tech scene are following in the footsteps of pioneers who established the Great Plains,  including some descendants who are turning to information technology to sustain and even reinvent their family farm.

Ag Solutions for the 21st Century
Ag tech clusters like the ones in Salinas and Fargo have sprung up around the world to figure out how to solve some of farming’s biggest challenges. With a global population expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, according to United Nations’ estimates, a vision for Ag 2.0 is required to help feed the world’s people.

In Israel, the Agriculturale Research Organization (ARO), founded in 1921, has been studying how to make the desert bloom.

ARO is significant because its mission is not only scientific and environmental, but also geo-political as food self-sufficiency is an important part of the country’s national security. Today, ARO is focused on 
  • water conservation technology, 
  • climate change, 
  • sustainability and 
  • food safety.
Agriculture technician at Philips HTC City Farm Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Holland, second only to the U.S. in terms of exporting agriculture technology, is a long time ag tech innovator. The Dutch revolutionized the moldboard plow in the 1600s with a feature that turns the soil over. It remains an important design element in modern plows.

Today the country is home to more than 4,000 so-called agrifood companies including major players like Cargill, Monsanto, and ConAgra. Holland recently hosted its 2nd annual platform for innovation, Dutch AgriFood Week. The event includes an Agri Accelerator Seminar for startups as well as TEDx talks on the future of farming and food.

Each ag tech hub has a different disposition, but they share a similar desire for innovation.

“Farms in South America, especially here in Argentina, are large operations and aggressively want technology advances” noted Ciro Echesortu, Program Coordinator for the Buenos Aires-based NXTP Labs, an early-stage fund for ag tech companies in Latin America. The company launched its first fund in July of 2016 and plans a 2nd one this summer. The goal is not only to spur development but to keep South American farm technology companies close to home.

“What does it take to have an ag tech hub?” asked Dennis Donohue, the former mayor of Salinas.

“First, you have to have a culture of innovation already in place,” he explained. “And, you have to have a place to innovate, a place where you can deploy and evaluate new technologies.”

Donohue currently heads up initiatives for the Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology. He said Salinas, with its proximity to Silicon Valley, is attracting entrepreneurs eager to bring transformative technologies to agriculture. 
robotic vegetable picker
Soft robotic vegetable picker.
“I may be biased, but I think Salinas is the best ag tech platform on the planet.”

The massive farmland, stretching from central California to the interior of Mexico, with its connection to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs positions Salinas well as an agriculture technology leader. While farming-meets-information-technologies is the current zeitgeist, it still needs to be fully developed.

“About 25 years ago, I was taking a marketing class in the Silicon Valley area,” said Jeff Lusheg, a produce consultant. On the first day of class, as the students introduced themselves around the room, most identified themselves as engineers or marketing people in high tech.

“When I described what I did in the produce industry, everybody just cracked up laughing as if it were the most bizarre thing they’d ever heard.”

That’s obviously changed he said.

“The culture that you find in Salinas is you never know if the farmer you see wearing jeans and driving a pickup truck is an MBA from Harvard or Stanford,” Lusheg added, “There are some very tech-savvy people here.”

Supporting Future Ag Tech Innovators
Excitement about the future of farming isn’t limited to entrepreneurs bringing new technologies to the fields. It’s about educating the next generation of farmers and workers. Maggie Malone, director of the K-12 STEM program at Hartnell College, oversees a project that provides free classes to children, many of which come from farm worker families. These classes include subjects like coding, math and aerospace.



Most of the parents aren’t well-educated and they don’t have the resources to pay for something like what the STEM program offers, but they see the results,” she said. “It’s amazing.”

Hartnell’s STEM program started just 5 years ago with a grant from NASA. Malone was the only teacher — a part timer — but since then she has gone full-time and added a staff of 10.

“We were mandated to serve 625 students per year with the money that they gave us. But very quickly we doubled and tripled those numbers, so we went out and got extra funding from private sources.”

Soon enough, the college started a partnership with Salinas to create a CoderDojo program.

“Every time we get a new grant and a new request for the program it makes me shiver,” Malone said, adding that she watches her students take the excitement of technology with them as they go higher in their grade levels.

“They are the future of Salinas.”


ORIGINAL: IQ Intel
Jason Lopez Writer 
January 24, 2017
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jueves, 23 de junio de 2016

50 Smartest Companies 2016

50 Smartest Companies 2016. Credit: Illustration by Matthew Hollister
Our editors pick the 50 companies that best combine innovative technology with an effective business model.
Each year we identify 50 companies that are “smart” in the way they create new opportunities. Some of this year’s stars are large companies, like Amazon and Alphabet, that are using digital technologies to redefine industries. Others are wrestling with technological changes: companies like Microsoft, Bosch, Toyota, and Intel. Also on the list are ambitious startups like 23andMe, a pioneer in consumer-accessible DNA testing; 24M, a reinventor of battery technology; and Didi Chuxing, a four-year-old ride-hailing app that’s beating Uber in the Chinese market. Still, despite the excitement of recent advances in such fields as artificial intelligence and genomic medicine, technology has failed to energize the overall economy. In our opening essay, we explore why that is so and what needs to change.


1 Amazon
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Public
Valuation: $337 billion
Last year we included Amazon on our list of the 50 Smartest Companies for incorporating robots into its fulfillment centers. This year the standout is the surprising success of its Alexa Voice Service and the growing family of devices it powers (the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Tap). Alexa makes it easy to search the Web, play music, and adjust your lights and thermostat—just by speaking inside your home. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing operation, also deserves notice as the Industry: leader and Amazon’s fastest-growing and most profitable division.
$89.99 What the Echo Dot, the most affordable device to feature Alexa Voice Service, sells for.

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2 Baidu
Headquarters: Beijing, China
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Public
Valuation: $55 billion
Outside its core business of Internet search and ad sales, Baidu is doing notable work on speech recognition and conversational interfaces. In 2015, it announced the development of a speech recognition engine called Deep Speech 2 that uses deep learning to recognize spoken words, sometimes more accurately than a person can. Baidu conducts AI research in part to improve its products and services and better compete with rivals such as Alibaba and Tencent. The company is also aggressively pursuing the autonomous-car market and recently established a team in Silicon Valley to lead research and engineering in computer vision, robotics, and sensors, among other areas.
100 Baidu plans to employ more than 100 autonomous-car researchers and engineers in California by year’s end.

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3 Illumina
Headquarters: San Diego, California
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $20 billion


The world’s largest DNA-sequencing company hopes to expand its technology’s role in diagnosing illness. This year it formed a new companyto develop blood tests that cost $1,000 or less and can detect many types of cancer before symptoms arise, greatly improving the chances of survival. The spinoff, called Grail, is being headed by Jeff Huber, a former senior Google executive who lost his wife to colon cancer. The testing concept, sometimes called a “liquid biopsy,” uses Illumina’s high-speed sequencing machines to scour a person’s blood for fragments of DNA released by cancer cells.
$2.2 billion Revenue reached last year, up 19 percent from the previous year.

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4 Tesla Motors
Headquarters: Palo Alto, California
Industry: Transportation
Status: Public
Valuation: $28 billion


Tesla topped this list last year for its plan to extend its battery technology from cars to residential and commercial applications. This year, Tesla’s Autopilot technology stands out for the way it integrates feedback from a camera, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and GPS to aid drivers on highways, help them avoid collisions, and assist them in parking. Besides advancing semi-autonomous driving, Tesla is also making electric vehicles more accessible by introducing its most affordable car yet, the $35,000 Model 3.
50 percent According to CEO Elon Musk, drivers have a 50 percent lower chance of having an accident when driving with Tesla Autopilot.

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5 Aquion Energy
Headquarters: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Industry: Energy
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $190 million raised


Aquion continues to raise money for its innovative batteries, which have made it a successful startup in a notoriously tough Industry:. Investors include Bill Gates and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well as the corporate venture capital arms of energy Industry: giants Shell and Total. Invented by Carnegie Mellon professor Jay Whitacre, the batteries are made with nontoxic materials that can provide long-term storage of energy from solar, wind, and other intermittent sources at a very low cost. Whitacre says the company’s been disciplined in its development of a manufacturing process, basing it on existing models and materials to improve its chance of working.
Backers Include Bill Gates, Shell.

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6 Mobileye
Headquarters: Jerusalem, Israel
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $8 billion


How can automakers compete with companies developing self-driving vehicles, such as Google parent Alphabet? One increasingly popular option is to partner with Mobileye, which makes machine vision systems and motion detection algorithms that warn drivers when they are deviating from driving lanes or about to collide with cars in front of them. Mobileye is already working on autopilot and collision avoidance technology for Audi, BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo and recently inked an agreement with two undisclosed automakers to provide systems for fully autonomous cars.
600 Number of employees who are annotating the images used to train its autonomous driving system.


7 23andMe
Headquarters: Mountain View, California
Industry: Biotech
Status: Private
Valuation: $1.1 billion Valuation:


Now focused on getting its customers to share their data with medical researchers, 23andMe has partnered with leading medical centers, including Stanford and Mount Sinai. To date, the company has gathered DNA from more than one million customers, more than 80 percent of whom they say are participating in research.
One million The company has sequenced the DNA of more than one million customers.

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8 Alphabet
Headquarters: Mountain View, California
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Public
Valuation: $491 billion


Google parent company Alphabet pursues many projects, including a number of riskier “moon shot” technologies, but its ventures into AI and autonomous driving are the standouts. Earlier this year, DeepMind—which is part of Google—attracted global attention for beating a world champion player at the game Go. The matchup revealed the sophistication of its AI technology. Alphabet also continues to work on fully autonomous cars and recently signed a deal to incorporate its technology into Chrysler minivans—its first partnership with a major automaker.
1.6 million Number of miles Alphabet’s autonomous cars have driven so far.

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9 Spark Therapeutics
Headquarters: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $918 million
The company’s focus is on developing one-time, life-altering treatments for debilitating genetic diseases, a whole new model of personalized, precise treatment. Many of its key personnel come from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and their work focuses on finding treatments for rare diseases where no or only palliative therapies exist currently.
Collaborators Corporate collaborators include Pfizer, Genable Technologies, and Clearside Biomedical.

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10 Huawei
Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $1 billion
Huawei has been selling cell phones for more than a decade and smartphones since 2009, but it long struggled to break into the premium-device and U.S. markets. Its 2015 launch of the Nexus 6P phone, which it co-designed and manufactured for Google, showed it can make high-end, high-quality smartphones. Continued strength in entry-level devices, coupled with growing clout in more expensive phones, helped Huawei grow smartphone shipments 58 percent year-over-year and become the no. 3 smartphone vendor worldwide.
27.5 million Number of smartphones Huawei shipped in the first quarter of 2016, according to market researcher IDC.

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11First Solar
Headquarters: Tempe, Arizona
Industry: Energy
Status: Public
Valuation: $5 billion
First Solar designs and manufactures solar panels using a low-cost thin-film semiconductor technology and also develops solar farms that utilities can use. It differs from many solar companies in that it is in the black, making $546 million in profit in 2015 on nearly $3.6 billion in revenue.
$546 million Profits earned in 2015.

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12 Nvidia
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $22 billion


A number of chip makers are targeting the autonomous-car market, andNvidia is distinguishing itself by offering an entire platform and accompanying software development kit for self-driving cars. The platform uses AI to give vehicles “360° situational awareness.” Nvidia says that more than 50 automakers (including Audi, BMW, Ford, and Tesla), suppliers, developers, and research institutions are experimenting with the platform. Nvidia is also using its strength in gaming graphics chips to move into the VR market and released a platform (chip module plus developer kit) for drones last year.
$1.3 billion Revenue increased 13 percent in the most recent quarter, to $1.3 billion, compared with $1.15 billion a year ago.

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13 Cellectis
Headquarters: New York City, New York
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $1 billion


Cellectis is scheduled to do a formal trial of its engineered immune cells as a leukemia treatment as soon as this year. This field of immune engineering was one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2016, and Cellectis is shaping its early development.
$300 million Though not profitable, the company has over $300 million in cash, enough to last through 2018.

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14 Enlitic
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Industry: Biotech
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $15 million raised


Enlitic produces deep-learning software that can analyze x-rays. It’s being tested by radiologists in Australia, which will be key to establishing how well it can help doctors make diagnoses and design treatments. The recent departure of its founder Jeremy Howard, well known in the machine-learning field, seems to pose a challenge for the company, but new leadership asserts that applications of its algorithms will soon expand to the detection of lung cancer and bone fractures.
50 percent Claims its algorithm read chest CT images 50 percent more accurately than experts in its own test.

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15 Facebook
Headquarters: Menlo Park, California
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Public
Valuation: $345 billion


Facebook continues to develop its mobile advertising business and refine its mobile apps, but the Oculus Rift is its most exciting technology right now. Following years of anticipation, the virtual-reality headset was released in late March.
$599 Rift sells for $599.

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16 SpaceX
Headquarters: Hawthorne, California
Industry: Transportation
Status: Private
Valuation: $12 billion


If spaceflight were more affordable, more missions could be flown, more scientific discoveries could be made, and new business opportunities could open up. SpaceX has figured out the first step toward driving down costs by landing its rocket boosters on ships after sending them into space. Retrieving rockets makes it possible to reuse them. SpaceX plans to eventually schedule launches every few weeks.
Four Number of times SpaceX attempted to land a rocket on a barge before succeeding.

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17 Toyota
Headquarters: Toyota City, Japan
Industry: Transportation
Status: Public
Valuation: $152 billion


The Toyota Research Institute will study the future of mobility, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Other recent forward-looking moves include the launch of Mirai, a hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicle for the mass market. Mirai has a range of over 300 miles and emits only water vapor. Toyota is now working on developing a network of affordable hydrogen fuel stations.
Leader Roboticist Gill Pratt is CEO of the Toyota Research Institute.

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18 Airware
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $70 million raised


Airware is already one of the biggest drone startups, having raised more than $70 million in venture funding, and it is poised to become much bigger. Rather than actually making drones, it provides a control system for any type of drone.
Leader Airware’s founder and CEO also leads an investment fund that supports businesses creating technologies for commercial drones.

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19 IDE Technologies
Headquarters: Kadima, Israel
Industry: Energy
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available (owned in equal parts by publicly traded Delek Group and Israel Chemical)


Its large-scale desalination process is finding more customers. In the U.S. IDE won the job of reactivating a mothballed plant in Santa Barbara, California, and its prospects look strong as long as extracting salt from water to make it potable continues to be economical. Demand will certainly be there: worldwide, some 700 million people don’t have access to enough clean water, and that number is expected to explode to 1.8 billion by 2025.
26 percent By October IDE will be producing 26 percent of Santa Barbara’s water.


20 Tencent
Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
Industry: Transportation
Status: Public
Valuation: $193 billion


Tencent is Asia’s largest Internet company, with a well-used Web portal and a messaging app, WeChat, that is China’s largest. The company recently branched into the enterprise market by launching a business-focused version of WeChat that facilitates communication (messages, phone calls, e-mails) between colleagues, as well as employee expense reports and other record-keeping. Since Tencent derives most of its revenue from online and smartphone games, it has also been investing in mobile-games companies, including the U.S. firms Glu Mobile, and Pocket Gems. It recently bought Riot Games, which makes the hit League of Legends.
78 percent Tencent’s largest business segment, mostly games, accounts for 78 percent of its revenue.

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21 Didi Chuxing
Headquarters: Beijing, China
Industry: Transportation
Status: Private
Valuation: Reported Valuation: $28 billion


Chinese roads are jammed, and a rise in car ownership has led to a jump in people interested in part-time driving work, but competition with Uber has been fierce. Uber and Didi are battling for market share by paying drivers subsidies to pick up rides. Didi claims its drivers complete 14 million rides a day to Uber’s one million. The company’s ambitions don’t end at China’s borders. It has partnerships in India and Southeast Asia, including stakes in Lyft and Indian ride-share app Ola.
14 million Number of rides its drivers complete a day.

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22 Oxford Nanopore
Headquarters: Oxford, United Kingdom
Industry: Biotech
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $355 million raised


Its sequencer is small and portable—greatly expanding its applications and market—because it analyzes DNA by drawing the molecules through tiny, delicate pores. The platform, which went on sale in 2015 and is enough of a threat to competitor Illumina to draw a lawsuit, can analyze DNA, RNA, proteins, and other types of molecules. Potential applications include scientific research, personalized medicine, food safety, crop science, and security and defense. It will soon be tested in space.
Intellectual property Illumina, once an investor, is now suing the company for patent infringement.

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23 24M
Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Industry: Energy
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $50 million raised


Lithium-ion batteries power everything from smartphones and tablets to electric cars and buses. They are expensive, however, and cumbersome to manufacture. Startup 24M developed a new design and manufacturing process that will cut costs. The battery Industry: is striving to produce batteries that cost $100 per kilowatt-hour or less, and 24M says its batteries will cross that threshold sooner than competitors—by 2020.
50 percent The company claims it can reduce the cost of lithium-ion batteries by 50 percent.

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24 Alibaba
Headquarters: Hangzhou, China
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Public
Valuation: $192 billion


Alibaba, which runs an eBay-like store, a popular virtual mall, and other e-commerce services, is now the world’s largest online marketplace as measured by annual gross merchandise volume. The growth of mobile and video ads also favors Alibaba, which already dominates the Chinese mobile-ad market and recently acquired Youku Tudou, China’s largest online video service. Beyond China, Alibaba has become a backer of other technology companies. In the past year, it invested in Groupon, Magic Leap, and Snapchat in the U.S., as well as the Indian payments and commerce business Paytm and Singapore’s national postal and logistics company, SingPost.
$485 billion Gross value of merchandise sold through Alibaba in its last fiscal year.

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25 Bristol-Myers Squibb
Headquarters: New York City, New York
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $119 billion


Leads in cancer immunotherapy, working on “checkpoint inhibitors" for numerous forms of cancer. Opdivo, one of two inhibitors the company markets, works by allowing immune-system T cells to attack cancer. It’s approved for skin, lung, and kidney cancer, and when successful, the treatments appear to have enabled patients’ immune systems to eradicate their tumors. It is expensive, however, and that has caused issues with European regulators.
Five years One-third of patients with advanced melanoma survived for five years in a study of Opdivo.

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26 Microsoft
Headquarters: Redmond, Washington
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $405 billion


When we included Microsoft on last year’s list for its HoloLens augmented-reality technology, the system had not yet shipped. Now a preproduction “Developer Edition” is available and Microsoft is starting to use it for augmented-reality experiences. Attempting to switch its focus from desktop software to cloud and mobile services, and having recently announced a mammoth $26 billion purchase of business social network LinkedIn, the company is also pushing forward with innovative research, including some on deep neural networks that it has incorporated into Skype for simultaneous language translation. The research will also be applied to a variety of computer vision tasks.
152 A Microsoft network that won a global image recognition contest in 2015 used 152 layers of virtual neurons.

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27 Fanuc
Headquarters: Oshino-mura, Japan
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $30 billion


Fanuc began as part of Fujitsu and is the world’s largest maker of industrial robots. It recently announced a novel technology that will connect robots to networks so factory owners can download apps to them. In June 2015, Fanuc also partnered with a Japanese machine-learning company to create artificial-intelligence technology that enables its robots to learn skills independently.
Eight Number of hours a Fanuc robot needs to learn a task with 90 percent accuracy.

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28 Sonnen
Headquarters: Wildpoldsried, Germany
Industry: Energy
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, more than $20 million raised, including GE Ventures’ recent investment


Its system connects homes with solar panels to lithium batteries in a storage system it calls a virtual power plant, offering consumers electricity that is 25 percent cheaper than power from the grid. The company’s new trading platform gives German homeowners a way to both purchase power and sell excess solar power across the utility grid.
25 percent Electricity on its system is 25 percent cheaper than the electricity on the grid, according to the company.

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29 Improbable
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Industry: Computing & Communications
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $22 million raised


The company, which came out of work done originally when the founders were students at the University of Cambridge, is developing an environment for building virtual worlds at a new scale and complexity. With advances in robotics and driverless cars, such simulations have become more important as a testing ground. Improbable’s technology allows large amounts of information to be shared between multiple servers nearly instantaneously, which is appealing to gaming developers looking to allow many players to experience a virtual world together.
Funding Andreessen Horowitz is a major backer.

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30 Movidius
Headquarters: San Mateo, California
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $90 million raised


Movidius makes chips for computer-vision applications, which will be necessary to develop smarter mobile devices and drones. Google’s Tango tablet uses Movidius chips, as does DJI’s Phantom 4 drone. Movidius also recently announced a new chip geared for augmented and virtual reality.
On the radar Drones using Movidius technology can sense obstacles to avoid collisions.

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31 Intrexon
Headquarters: Germantown, Pennsylvania
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $3 billion


Its Oxitec division’s genetically engineered mosquito, which yields offspring that die quickly, has been released in Grand Cayman and parts of Brazil in an attempt to reduce the spread of Zika and other diseases. In March, the World Health Organization recommended a pilot deployment of Oxitec’s solution. The company has been buying up companies specializing in synthetic biology in a variety of applications, but it has not been transparent about how its technology works, leading to some negative speculation about the company.
$174 million Acquisitions increased sales from $8 million to $174 million in five years.

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32 Carbon
Headquarters: Redwood City, California
Industry: Energy
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $141 million raised


Carbon has developed a new technique based on stereolithography that it says is as much as 100 times faster than rivals’ 3-D printing methods and fast enough to be used in place of injection molding to produce certain parts. Carbon will face competition from HP, which has its own new printing technology based on a different class of materials. But the startup is backed by some high-powered investors, including Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Silver Lake Kraftwerk, and its board members include the former CEOs of Ford and DuPont.
$40,000 Use of its 3-D printers costs $40,000 a year.

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33 Bosch
Headquarters: Stuttgart, Germany
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $649 billion


Bosch’s vision for an industrial Internet of things starts with manufacturing facilities that are becoming increasingly connected and automated, a way to increase productivity in an era of global competition and relatively high domestic wages. The company estimates that by 2020 technologies like connected assembly lines, predictive maintenance, and machines that can do some self-monitoring will combine to boost company revenue by more than $1 billion while saving a comparable amount in operational expenses.
$80 billion Record revenue generated in 2015.

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34 T2 Biosystems
Headquarters: Lexington, Massachusetts
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $201 million


T2 Biosystems has begun selling its technology for detecting the pathogenic fungus Candida, an often deadly infection. The test is run in three to five hours, as opposed to two to six days, and today 16 hospitals use it.
35 Number of customers who now use the company’s bench-top diagnostic system.

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35 Editas Medicine
Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $1 billion


A pioneer of the controversial and exciting CRISPR gene-editing technology, Editas intends to begin testing a new form of gene repair in humans in 2017. The idea is to use CRISPR to cut out the genetic mutation that causes Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a rare retinal disease that leads to blindness, so the cell can repair itself with a normal version. Though CRISPR technology was invented just a few years ago, it is so precise and cheap to use that it has quickly become a tool in biology laboratories.
$94 million Money raised in its February IPO, and the stock is up 85 percent since then.

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36 Nestlé
Headquarters: Vevey, Switzerland
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $238 billion


Food giant Nestlé has jumped into microbiome research, working to develop “healthy gut” products for its Health Science division. Among its bets on nutritional therapies, the company has made repeated investments in Seres Therapeutics, most recently investing $120 million in the company to support its efforts to develop medicines aimed at the bacteriological balance in the digestive tract. The first experimental treatments are focused on Clostridium difficile infection and inflammatory bowel disease.
$2 billion At a slow time for its core food business, its nutritional therapies division has reached $2 billion in annual revenue in its first five years, and more strong growth is predicted.

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37 RetroSense Therapeutics
Headquarters: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Industry: Biotech
Status: Private
Valuation: not available, $12 million raised


Its therapy uses optogenetics, a technology that uses a combination of gene therapy and light to precisely control nerves. In its treatment of retinitis pigmentosa, the eye is injected with viruses carrying DNA from light-sensitive algae; this is intended to confer light sensitivity on certain nerve cells in the eye.
$12 million Revenue raised from foundations and private investors as well as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

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38 Line, subsidiary of Naver
Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Private
Valuation: expected to be more than $5 billion


Line’s growth has slowed, but it is still a leader among the world’s messaging apps when it comes to making money from its users. The company steadily introduces new features, such as chatbot functionality for corporate marketing campaigns and group calls for up to 200 people. (In comparison, Skype limits group calls to 25 people.) In its home market of Japan, Line offers taxi booking inside its app and will soon provide phone service through a deal with Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo. Its IPO expected later this year could value the company at more than $5 billion.
218 million Number of monthly active users.


39 TransferWise
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Private
Valuation: $1.1 billion


TransferWise matches people who looking to make currency trades around the world, at much lower fees than traditional institutions. It has already captured 5 percent of the U.K.’s money-transfer market and recently expanded to the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Mexico, among other places. Its goal of disrupting multinational banks and Western Union has attracted investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Richard Branson, among others.
$750 million Money TransferWise helps users exchange every month.

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40 Veritas Genetics
Headquarters: Danvers, Massachusetts
Industry: Biotech
Status: Private
Valuation: Not available


By making whole-genome sequencing and interpretation affordable, Veritas gives patients and doctors a fuller picture than what’s possible with common genetic tests, improving their diagnostic value. The company also offers cancer screening tests for $199 to $299.
$1,000 Whole-genome sequencing, including interpretation and counseling, costs under $1,000. The supply is limited to 5,000 customers in 2016.

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41 FireEye
Headquarters: Milpitas, California
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $2 billion


The company’s security system can be updated at any time to defend against constantly mutating cyber threats. It also encourages clients to focus on quickly resolving attacks, not just trying to avoid them. FireEye has grown to a significant size in an often fragmented Industry:, and it’s been hired to investigate high-profile cybersecurity failures at JPMorgan Chase, Sony Pictures, and Target.
In the works New products focus on securing public and private clouds and detecting targeted e-mail attacks.

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42 SevenBridges
Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $45 million raised


Its bioinformatics software platform runs one of the world’s largest genomic data sets, the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Genome Atlas. This gives cancer researchers worldwide immediate access to a petabyte of patient data and computational resources to analyze it, facilitating research collaboration. SevenBridges is also storing and analyzing data from the 100,000 genomes collected by the British National Health Service. The company’s long-term vision is to support drug research and the practice of precision medicine customized to each patient.
11,000 Number of patients that have contributed 33 cancer types and subtypes to its Cancer Genomics Cloud.

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43 Slack
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Private
Valuation: $4 billion


In the past year, Slack’s number of daily users increased from 750,000 to three million. During that time, the company rolled out voice calls as a beta feature and launched a directory for third-party apps, an $80 million fund to invest in Slack developers, and a toolkit for creating chatbots. It also introduced a “Sign In with Slack” feature that lets business users sign up for apps using their Slack identity credentials. The momentum helped Slack raise $200 million more in funding, for a current total of $540 million, at a Valuation: of $3.8 billion.
Three million Number of daily active Slack users.

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44 Coupang
Headquarters: Seoul, South Korea
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Private
Valuation: $5 billion


Originally a Groupon clone, Coupang is now widely viewed as the Amazon.com of Korea. Like Amazon, it is betting on same-day delivery as an amenity to lure consumers. It has invested millions in a sophisticated logistics system that spans warehouses, trucks, thousands of delivery people, and proprietary algorithms to link everything together. Coupang is also focused on making it easier and more compelling to buy items via smartphone. The aggressive approach brought in $1 billion in funding from Japan’s SoftBank last year.
$5 billion Coupang’s most recent Valuation:.


45 IBM
Headquarters: Armonk, New York
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $142 billion


IBM remains in turnaround mode. It has suffered 16 consecutive quarters of declining sales but continues to invest in cloud computing and analytics. Part of that investment involves buying up companies such as Truven Health Analytics and the Weather Company. The purchases come with huge data sets IBM can use to train its AI system, Watson.
100 Number of clients that have built Watson into a product.

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46 Snapchat
Headquarters: Los Angeles, California
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Private
Valuation: $20 billion


Snapchat is still experimenting with innovative new content, which was the reason it made this list last year. This year, Snapchat’s most significant moves relate to expanding its advertising business. Advertisers value Snapchat as a way to reach consumers aged 13 to 34, but they have criticized the company for charging high rates without sharing much data about ads’ performance. Snapchat recently addressed these concerns by signing deals that let Viacom sell ads on its behalf and allow Nielsen to supply campaign data to advertisers.
10 billion Number of videos that are seen on the app every day.

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47 Africa Internet Group
Headquarters: Lagos, Nigeria
Industry: Internet & Digital Media
Status: Private
Valuation: $1 billion


Africa Internet Group (AIG) was founded by the German tech incubator Rocket Internet in 2012 and runs an array of e-commerce companies throughout Africa. Its flagship business is the online retailer Jumia, which it says is Africa’s largest e-commerce mall. It also owns the continent’s leading hotel booking portal and classified-ad marketplaces for cars and real estate. Besides Rocket Internet, AIG has funding from Axa, Goldman Sachs, and two large telecommunications companies: MTN Group and Orange. Though it is not yet profitable, investors view AIG as a way to access Africa’s developing online economy
26 Africa Internet Group operates in 26 African countries.


48 LittleBits
Headquarters: New York City, New York
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Private
Valuation: Valuation: not available, $62 million raised


Its mostly open-source building kits are now for sale at Barnes & Noble, and the company has added new executives from Lego and MakerBot.
$299 Basic kits sell for $99 to $299.

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49 Intel
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California
Industry: Computing & Communications
Status: Public
Valuation: $140 billion


Despite its long domination of the PC chip market, Intel has struggled to keep ahead of customer demands, particularly the drive for mobile computing. Now the company is trying to find better footing in new domains such as the cloud and Internet-connected devices, experimenting with reprogrammable processors for deep neural networks, and moving a fundamentally new kind of computer memory to market.
$16.7 billion Money Intel spent to buy Altera, a maker of programmable logic devices.

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50 Monsanto
Headquarters: St. Louis, Missouri
Industry: Biotech
Status: Public
Valuation: $44 billion


Monsanto is using RNA interference to create alternatives to conventional genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Already able to kill bugs by getting them to eat leaves coated with specially designed RNA, the company is now trying to develop sprays that penetrate plant cells to block certain plant genes. Potential applications include ideas like a spray that causes tomatoes to taste better or one that helps plants survive a drought. In May, Bayer made a $62 billion offer for the company, which Monsanto turned down, though management did indicate an openness to discussing further offers.
$1.5 billion Money invested last year in research on new biotech traits, genomics, and more.

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June 21, 2016
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