Cloud Computing and A.I.
It is no secret that cloud technology is maturing at a rapid rate. Once thought to be fringe, the cloud is now taking over mainstream computing loads utilizing virtualized datacenters all around the world. Artificial intelligence is a CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit) intensive task that has now found its way into the cloud. Needless to say, the emerging technology could reshape the way we live our lives and in some cases, it already is. From Siri on our iPhones, to the GPS systems in our cars, these technologies certainly help us in our everyday life. As cloud continues to mature, artificial intelligence systems will be built out to perform even more sophisticated tasks. For example, Google’s infamous self-driving car uses artificial intelligence and cloud in order to make autonomous decisions while on the road.
What exactly is Artificial Intelligence in the Cloud?
Artificial intelligence and cloud are symbiotic because each service compliments the other. Advanced artificial intelligence tasks can require an entire datacenters worth of computing resources. In some cases, multiple datacenters could be needed to perform advanced AI tasks. Artificial intelligence requires abundant systems resources and traditional means of doing these tasks meant going out and buying the equipment or collocating servers.
Since artificial intelligence tasks can now be performed in the cloud, these tasks can be spread across datacenters if needed. Artificial intelligence works by hashing large amounts of data. The artificial intelligence engine then compares the data with data known to be correct against the data the engine proactively gathers and examines. The algorithms are designs to add new knowledge to a particular nesting of data once new data is obtained and confirmed to be true using internal methodologies. As you can see, these types of processes would overload your normal personal computer which is why the public cloud is ideal for artificial intelligence tasks.
IBM’s Watson
Watson is a prime example of artificial intelligence. Watson rose to fame due to its appearance on the hit television game show Jeopardy! IBM has since harnessed Watson’s Cognitive Computing model and released it as a service in the cloud. Watson’s Cognitive Computing model lets the system learn from incorrect data therefore Watson becomes smarter in its decision making skills, just like a human.
Watson is available as a Service and organizations can begin utilizing the artificial intelligence cloud service within their specific field. Pharmaceutical companies have been some of the early adopters of this technology as their operations benefit from artificial intelligence heavily. There are reports that Fluid is using Watson as its decision making engine that will ultimately become a “Personal Shopping Assistant”, which will help consumers make educated decisions using their mobile devices as described on Fluid’s website. Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a trending topic in technical circles and industry analysts predict that more AI computing tasks will find a home in the public cloud.
