Hello, ITU Newsletter readers!

The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development is hosting a Special Session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Meanwhile, here are your other key ICT trends and insights this week: Read about Apple's new original content plans, Ericsson's new CEO and will China have an AI boom?

Spotlight

Top 5 AI trends for 2017: This year's top artificial intelligence (AI) trends will be about far more than technology. We can expect more debate on AI's social and economic impacts - and more action on leveraging AI for social good. [ITU will co-host the first AI for Good Summit in June with IBM Watson AI XPRIZE.]

ICT Trends

Content: Apple's new original content plans highlight growing ICT-media industry convergence, a trend that has important global implications for connectivity in emerging markets.

China's AI boom? Baidu has appointed former Microsoft executive and AI expert Qi Lu as its new chief operating officer. AI is a new focus for Chinese venture capital investments after a record 2016, according to KPMG. And here's why China may have an edge in AI.

eCurrency has become a member of ITU’s standardization arm, ITU-T, to influence the development of international standards to provide the technical underpinnings of digital fiat currency. Read more on how digital fiat currency issued by Central Banks can drive financial inclusion.

Cybersecurity: 2017 will see more IoT-based distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, according to a new warning from global cybersecurity firm Sophos. Meanwhile, Level 3 becomes one of the latest telcos to boost security against botnet DDoS attacks.

SDN/NFV: Amdocs joins forces with the Linux Foundation to accelerate the global adoption of the open source ECOMP platform developed by AT&T in collaboration with Orange.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Quality/Performance: New ITU standard provides basis for high-quality Voice over LTE and Video-telephony over LTE. [Join a related webinar on Thursday, 19 January!]
Infrastructure: Reliance Jio plans $4.4 billion injection into 4G network.
Connectivity: Google's parent company killed its solar-powered internet-drone program as part of cutbacks, but is keeping Project Loon.
Big Data: More than 40% of data science tasks will be automated by 2020, according to Gartner.
Connectivity: Amazon is asking the US Federal Communications Commisson (FCC) for permission to run wireless tests. Is it preparing for drone services?

Insights

Where's the trust? As security and privacy rise as critical issues in today's ICT landscape, trust is essential. Yet, trust in ICTs is up against a backdrop of a broader 'global implosion' of trust in business, government, NGOs, and the media, according to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer.

10 key tasks for Ericsson's new CEO, Börje Ekholm, after a tough 2016 for the company. Light Reading's Ray Le Maistre lays out 10 key tasks for Mr. Ekholm on everything from 5G to IoT to cybersecurity to Ericsson's partnership with Cisco.

Keep up to date with ITU

UPCOMING EVENTS

- Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors; Geneva, Switzerland, 20 January 2017

- ITU-T Study Group 3 Meeting for the African region and ITU Regional Economic and Financial Forum of Telecommunications/ICTs for Africa; Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, 30 January - 3 February 2017

- The 3rd Annual Middle East and North Africa Spectrum Management Conference; Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 24-25 January 2017

- New videos! On ITU’s YouTube channel

- Read the latest ITU News Magazine here

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