Machine Intelligence Garage: accelerating machine intelligence start-ups
24 January 2018
Yesterday saw the launch of the Machine Intelligence Garage, a new initiative by the Digital Catapult, aimed at facilitating access to advanced computational resources for machine learning start-ups. We are playing a significant role within the programme.
As a founding partner, EPCC is opening up access to its considerable HPC resources and expertise to help machine learning start-ups accelerate product innovations. Research undertaken by the Digital Catapult found that the main barrier to growth faced by these start-ups was access to computational resources. Model training, for example, requires access to considerable compute and data resources beyond the reach of many start-ups. EPCC will work with the Garage through its open calls and workshops to facilitate easy access to resources for start-ups.
This is an exciting time for EPCC as we see increasing demand from our customers for large-scale data analytics and machine learning capability complementing demand for our traditional HPC services. Real impact generated from machine learning applications has served to kick-start investment in general artificial intelligence. With model training requiring significant computational resource, machine learning is set to be the ‘killer-app’ that will drive HPC (CPU and GPU) mainstream.
Machines for Machine Intelligence: the Machine Intelligence Garage programme
The Garage will work with start-ups with a well defined business idea and technical capability for whom access to computation power is a barrier to growth. Participating companies will be given access to computation power and relevant expertise, as well as a range of support activities.
Machine Intelligence Garage will also host workshops and experimentation days to help companies of all sizes get to grips with systems for machine intelligence. Early in 2018 an Experimentation Space programme will be launched where companies and researchers can try out new hardware solutions. Through its partners, the Garage will help start-ups accelerate development cycles from concept, through to technology development, and finally to market-ready proposition.
The applications for machine learning are limitless and EPCC is tremendously excited to be part of this new renaissance of artificial intelligence.