Fitch Ratings is acquiring AI startup Sigma for its AI-based tools, which can help in detecting frauds. 
Financial institutions and rating agencies are under pressure to ramp-up internal control and protect clients from unauthorized transactions. The financial crisis of  2008 was partly caused by rating agencies exaggerating the ratings of securities, which led to significant losses by investors. Both regulators and investors are demanding that rating agencies be vigilant in identifying financial crimes.

 The recently passed $740.5 billion federal defense bill allocate over $6 billion for AI research. The bill authorizes creating an AI office to coordinate AI efforts by a myriad of federal agencies. Ultimately, the bill will create a publicly accessible AI research cloud on par with big tech clouds such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
 

Centricity Inc., a New York-based startup, is raising another $10 million, which will bring the total raised thus far to around $12 million. The company develops AI-based tools to analyze user data for demand prediction and claims to have about ten customers. The company is one of the several trying to capitalize on the opportunities created by the stay-at-home orders across the country. Using the insight produced by the AI-based Machine Learning Models, retailers can predict the future demand for products and services.  

Jannelle Couret of the University of Rhode Island, USA, trained a Convoluted Neural Network (CNN) using  1,709 two-dimensional adult mosquitos images. The mosquitoes were collected from different colonies in five geographic regions and stored by flash freezing or dried samples. The researchers trained the CNN to identify Anopheles mosquito and its sex. Using test data, researchers found a 99.96% prediction accuracy for class and a 98.48% accuracy for the sex of the mosquito.