By Steve LeVine | Axios
Intel Wednesday released intelligent software that targets money-laundering — the methods that corrupt autocrats, narcotics traffickers, and sanctions-busters use to legitimize their illicit cash.
Why it matters: There’s a broad commercial struggle going on between Intel and chip rivals like Nvidia, with which it is in a death grip for the rich future of enabling artificial intelligence. With the announcement, Intel is putting points on the board, showing off know-how in the serious and exotic space of tracking illicit cash, which is harder to detect amid the sea of data coursing through the global financial system.
In 2016, between $800 billion and $2 trillion in illicit cash, equivalent to 2%-5% of global GDP, was laundered in various ways, according to the United Nations. In just one series of transactions, western banks including Citi, Barclays and Deutsche Bank were conduits for $22 billion illicitly shipped out of Russia from 2011 to 2014, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Russia’s Novaya Gazeta.
