IBM will invest up to five million dollars to create what it calls the “most advanced” artificial intelligence centre in Brazil, with the São Paulo State Research Foundation, which will invest the same amount.
[dropcap type=”default”]T[/dropcap]he Artificial Intelligence Engineering Research Center is due to open at the end of the third quarter of 2019, told IBM Research Director Ulisses Mello on the sidelines of the annual IBM Think event in San Francisco.
As part of the creation of the centre, IBM and FAPESP will open a call for proposals to universities, which includes a focus on accelerating the availability of artificial intelligence systems in Portuguese.
The intention is to encourage the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in Portuguese “so that they can read, process, speak and speak Portuguese,” according to IBM.
The choice of the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) for the partnership was due to its program of creation of engineering centres, which “is aligned with the model that IBM has used for the AI Horizon Network“, said Ulisses Mello.
Centro IA de São Paulo will be the first in Latin America to integrate this collaboration network created by IBM in 2016 to bring universities and researchers closer to artificial intelligence.
“In addition, FAPESP is one of the main agencies promoting scientific and technological research in Brazil,” explained the director, stressing that the organization has “guaranteed autonomy by law“, which will allow “a robust long-term collaboration.”
The goal of the IA Center is to “foster significant scientific advances on the potential of AI,” IBM describes, and apply the results to five market areas – natural resources, agricultural business, the environment, finance and health.
The headquarters of the Center “will be in some university in the state of São Paulo,” said Ulisses Mello, a decision that “will depend on the outcome” of the call for proposals that will be ongoing until April 15 and will focus on, in addition to the IA in Portuguese , solutions in artificial intelligence algorithms, AI for Good, industrial applications of AI and Deep Representation of Reasoning and Knowledge.
This call for proposals, which should be made in English, may result in the selection of a consortium of universities for the centre, in addition to the choice of headquarters.
The agreement will have a minimum duration of two years and a maximum of ten, with an annual investment of one million dollars divided by the two entities.
The annual IBM Think event kicked off today and will run through Wednesday in San Francisco, California.
