US information technology firm IBM has teamed up with Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) to build an engineering center in Brazil for developing solutions around artificial intelligence.
The center will foster collaboration among universities, students and researchers, encouraging technology enthusiasts to develop AI solutions that accelerate productivity in key economic sectors such as healthcare, financial services, and agribusiness.
“AI systems have made remarkable progress in recent years, but further research is needed…….Applying current and future AI systems to real-world industrial problems still present remarkable technical challenges,”says the Brazilian foundation.
Both IBM and the foundation will invest US$5 million each, according to local media reports, and the center will likely be up and running sometime in the third quarter of this year.
Among the goal of the center is advancing AI algorithms and systems to increase AI’s impact on Brazil’s major industries –natural resources (oil & gas, mining), agribusiness, and financial sector – while exploring the socioeconomic implications of the technology on those fields.
Local researchers will try to apply AI technologies to some of the world’s most enduring challenges, ranging from healthcare, ageing, image recognition, hardware acceleration, and many others.
The facility will be the first Latin American institution of IBM’s AI Horizons Network, a program designed to arm technology enthusiasts with the necessary tools before encouraging them to develop AI solutions that the wider world is eagerly looking out for.