AI startups received $1.8bn from investors in the first half of 2017, according to CB Insights. The second half of the year has seen a continuation of the trend, as Graphcore and SenseTime secured large capital financing rounds. This said, AI remains a trend with question marks hanging over it, with many of the industry’s leading researchers still feeling that we are a long way off solving critical issues with AI – like the frame problem, and inference. Typically, when most consider AI, they think of the Googles and Baidus of this world, who spent between $20 to $30bn internally on the area in 2016, according to McKinsey. Much of this effort has been focused on a race to achieving…