Carnegie Mellon University and the corporate lab producing research for the U.S. Army have entered into a $72 million cooperative agreement to accelerate research and development of artificial intelligence technologies.
Over the next five years, CMU will lead a group of universities that will work in collaboration with the Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory to create advanced algorithms, autonomy and AI to support national security and defense.
“Tackling difficult science and technology challenges is rarely done alone and there is no greater challenge facing the army than artificial intelligence,” Philip Perconti, director of the Army Research Laboratory, said in a prepared statement.
“The Army is looking forward to making great advances in AI research to ensure readiness today and to enhance the army’s modernization priorities for the future,” he said.
Currently, the army produces and collects far more data than it can ever hope to process with solely human analysts. That includes full-motion video, acoustics and massive, text-based data sets for a wide-reaching set of missions, including those in health care, maintenance, logistics, intelligence, operations and more.
That can be arduous for people, so extracting actionable insights in a timely fashion is important to the army — hence the increased focus on artificial intelligence.
Under this cooperative agreement between CMU and the army, some of the $72 million investment will also provide initial funding for the Army AI Task Force set up on Carnegie Mellon’s campus in 2018.
“At this time of accelerating innovation, Carnegie Mellon is eager to partner with ARL and with universities across the nation to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and better serve the army mission in the 21st century,” CMU President Farnam Jahanian said in a prepared statement.
Courtney Linder: clinder@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1707. Twitter: @LinderPG.
First Published: March 11, 2019, 10:09 p.m.
