A buzz is about in AI circles around “capsule networks”, a new variant on neural networks that backers say could simplify, cut the costs of, commoditize and, in the end, democratize how deep learning systems are taught to do what we want them to do.

How can capsule networks do all this? They hold out the hope of tackling one of the biggest problems in AI: radically reducing the amount of data and compute resources needed to train deep learning systems. This, in turn, means AI could become available to the broader market, no longer consigned to a few companies with mammoth compute resources and infinite volumes of data – i.e., the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) companies.