Hong Kong — Federated Learning Consortium (FLC) is a global non-profit organization headquartered in Hong Kong set to launch officially on November 1, 2021. The goal for FLC’s founding is to accelerate the adoption and advancement of federated learning, a newer decentralized and privacy-preserving approach to AI, as well as related technologies such as multi-party computation (MPC), supporting blockchain infrastructure, and edge computing technologies. FLC has already received a total initial pledge of 2 million dollars, which it will use for hiring, research, and ecosystem development.
Recently the applications of federated learning (FL) are proliferating at an accelerated pace due to multiple factors coming to crossroads: increasing regulatory controls on consumer data privacy, increased awareness of consumers of data privacy and sovereignty, rising number of IoT and smart devices, more robust edge computing capabilities, and last but not least, more demand for collaborative machine learning across organizations and enterprises. These are fueling the new paradigm of federated learning, which decentralizes the AI process by training models across localized computing nodes or devices instead of the currently more prevalent centrally managed AI model.
FL is currently already being used and tested across various industries globally including finance, healthcare, smart vehicles, consumer applications, and manufacturing. Implementation of FL however, is far from trivial – due to lack of large scale in-production case studies and documented implementation best practices, there are still barriers to quick adoption for enterprises that have fitting use cases.
Additionally, FL may require the integration of various technologies in the scope of deep learning, blockchain, edge and edge computing, depending on the implementation approach and use case. FLC’s mission is to bridge that gap with research, collaboration, case studies, and practical implementation know-how. FLC’s member ecosystem is to consist of FL technology solution vendors, system integrators, academic researchers, enterprise users, and related technology companies (blockchain, IoT, edge computing). Membership has no cost but has certain requirements based on existing solutions, customer base, industries covered, etc.
FLC is initiated by founder of APEX Technologies Jimmy Hu, a leading China-based consumer data technology and AI company. APEX Technologies has been piloting federated learning technology solutions within its large enterprise customer base across retail, travel, and automotive verticals and is looking to integrate FL into its existing enterprise software suite.
“We look forward to working with industry leaders, experts, and enterprise users to share our level of interest in federated learning, creating synergies and advancing and growing the ecosystem. FLC’s vision is to create differentiated value in the greater AI space and to provide insights, collaboration, and know-how“.
For more information please visit FLC.AI
Media Contact: Siven You, siven.you@chinapex.com