AI Case Study

"But at a press briefing in San Francisco two days before Ng’s Landing.ai venture is introduced, he demonstrated an example of using AI for visual inspection in a factory’s quality control efforts.

In many factories, workers look over parts coming off an assembly line for defects. Ng showed a video in which a worker instead put a circuit board beneath a digital camera connected to a computer and the computer identified a defect in the part.

Ng said that while typical computer vision systems might require thousands of sample images to become “trained,” Landing.ai’s system would take only five training images, making it easier to adapt to different tasks in a factory.

Ng said Landing.ai had been approached by investors but had not accepted outside capital yet. Foxconn, known more formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, is Landing.ai’s first strategic partner. Ng said the startup has been working with Foxconn since July, but he would not elaborate on the nature of the collaboration or which of Foxconn’s customers it might involve. Foxconn makes products for many companies aside from Apple."