02 Jul 2026 10:09AM
At ATxSummit 2026, global leaders explored how to scale AI responsibly, build trust and ensure its benefits are widely shared.
From robots learning new tasks autonomously to farmers using smartphone apps to diagnose crop diseases, artificial intelligence (AI) is already reshaping economies, businesses, jobs and daily lives.Ensuring these changes create value and benefit communities will require international collaboration and innovation that extends beyond technology itself. Organised by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore, Asia Tech x Summit (ATxSummit) 2026 carried the tagline Redefining Tech for a Better Future, drawing global policymakers and industry leaders to Singapore in May.
ON THE FRONTIER OF AN AI-POWERED FUTURE
As AI systems become more autonomous, speakers explored what it will take to make them reliable and widely deployable.For robotics, one challenge is data. At his Tech Talk on Efficient Physical AI, Nvidia’s chief scientist and senior vice president of research Dr William Dally explained how recent breakthroughs in AI are accelerating advances in autonomous robotics.Robots need to learn from the physical world, but the data needed to train them remains limited. To address this, researchers are supplementing data from human demonstrations with large volumes of human video footage and information gathered from people remotely operating robots.According to Dr Dally, this approach has led to significant improvements in performance. “We’re able to carry out increasingly complex tasks with better accuracy and higher success rates,” he said.Advances in computing power are also helping to push the field forward. Over the past 12 years, Nvidia’s AI hardware has become significantly faster and more efficient at running AI models, Dr Dally added. This could expand the use of robots in areas such as caregiving, manufacturing and hazardous work environments.
