Dell partners with CIT to fast-track AI projects

President of CIT Dr Barry O’Connor, Dr Donna O’Shea Dept of Computer Science, Bob Savage, Vice-President, Dell Technologies and Chair of CIT’s Governing Body and Dr Seán McSweeney, Department of Computer Science, at the CIT Bishopstown campus. Picture: Darragh Kane

Tech giant Dell is partnering with the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) on a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform that will help students and researchers build state-of-the-art technology.

The new platform powered by a new supercomputer will allow researchers to gain real-time insights into large data sets and accelerate their projects in areas ranging from manufacturing and finance to marketing and agriculture.

It will be used by researchers within the Institute for advanced AI modelling and will also be available to postgraduate students in the MSc in Artificial Intelligence. As part of the AI partnership, CIT were provided access to Dell Technologies AI Lab in Limerick.

Head of Research at CIT Dr Niall Smith said: “In 2019, CIT secured €15.4m in research funding. The provision of this key computing infrastructure enables CIT researchers, and our many academic and industry collaborators, to develop innovative solutions to problems in almost any domain including ICT, agritech, maritime, and space."

Jason Ward, managing director, Dell Technologies Ireland said their teams have worked closely with CIT to better understand their needs and put in place a high-performance computing solution that can drive more accurate research results. 

"We’re looking forward to seeing the new innovations unleashed by the new AI platform over the coming years.” 

The creation of advanced AI tools and techniques require massive amounts of computing power. According to research lab OpenAI, the computational power needed to create the largest AI models doubled every three to four months between 2012 and 2018.

The new partnership is helping to solve these challenges by simplifying the development and production of AI models.