Big Data

Gone are the days when scientific progress was confined to individual disciplines, like swimmers rigidly adhering to their designated lanes in a pool. Today, breakthroughs increasingly occur at the intersection of fields, as researchers break free from these traditional boundaries and collaborate across disciplines to tackle complex challenges—from developing personalized cancer treatments based on genomic…

Parallel Bio’s head of technology shares a vision for faster, cheaper, and better biological research with human organoids. Ari Gesher, Parallel Bio’s new head of technology, may be new to biotech, but that’s not stopping him from thinking big about disrupting the status quo in biological research. The biotech startup is betting on automation and…

While the mathematical capabilities of large language models such as ChatGPT are steadily improving, math is clearly not their forté. Not only is it extremely computationally efficient to ask such a model a math question, it isn’t all that hard to find word problems that trip up even the latest LLMs — like ‘how many…

Can a machine truly understand? AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, Ph.D. believes the answer is a firm yes when it comes to large language models (LLMs), and it’s precisely this understanding that has him deeply concerned. “It’s very clear that we understand language in much the same way as these large language models,” Hinton said in…

For six decades, the R&D 100 Awards have been a benchmark of achievement in science and technology, often referred to informally as “The Oscars of Innovation.” This year, we’re offering a new interactive experience, allowing you to explore the remarkable work of both winners and finalists across diverse fields. From advances in mechanical and material…

[Updated August 8, 2024] The global R&D map is being redrawn, caught between forces of nationalism and the undeniable pull of international collaboration. While the aftershocks of the pandemic and shifting political winds have led some nations to turn inward, the race for innovation is driving a surprising surge in cross-border investment. For instance, South…

R&D World has announced the winners of the 2024 R&D 100 Professional Awards. The honorees were selected by a panel of 56 prestigious industry experts from around the globe. The list of 2024 winners follows, along with highlights from their nomination letters. These winners will be formally awarded at the R&D 100 Awards Banquet at…

NTT Research is playing the long game, tackling challenges that others shy away from. While many R&D labs focus on a relatively near-term ROI for research, NTT is more patient, taking a page from storied labs like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC that prioritize bigger, riskier but potentially more transformative bets. Its website declares: “Our…

Picture a gymnast like Simone Biles, who during a routine, performs a series of flips, twists, and complex maneuvers. Judges must capture every nuance of these routines — from the exact number of rotations to the subtle angle of a pointed toe — a task fraught with difficulty. Consistently interpreting the Code of Points, which…

While corporate researchers in the pharmaceutical, material, and chemical industries hail AI as a game-changer for accelerating knowledge discovery and transforming industries, they are not blind to its potential downsides, according to a new research study from Elsevier. This apprehension centers largely on AI’s capacity to fuel misinformation, a concern 96% of respondents shared. That’s…

Silicon Valley is still where it’s at in terms of R&D. Yes, the region has cut roughly 45,000 tech jobs since 2022, but its dominance in research and development remains unchallenged, based on data from The 2023 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. And despite the layoffs, many tech companies have reported significant revenue growth. NVIDIA…

The global automation firm Emerson (NYSE: EMR) had announced a major update to its Ovation automation platform. Ovation 4.0 introduces a software-defined architecture designed to empower utilities in the power and water industries to tap data, new technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) for enhanced operational excellence, reliability, affordability, and sustainability. Ovation 4.0 integrates and delivers…

Los Alamos National Laboratory and OpenAI are joining forces to conduct the world’s first real-world evaluation of AI’s potential role in biological threats. The partnership between OpenAI and Los Alamos goes beyond previous text-based assessments of AI in biological contexts. OpenAI highlighted two aspects that set this research apart, noting the “research will involve real…

One of the unsung heroes of the recent explosion in interest in AI — especially in terms of large language models and natural language processing — is the word embedding. Representing a vector of real numbers, embeddings have been around in one or another since for decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers explored a…

AI is popping up in more and more contexts these days, including in weather forecasting. At Argonne National Laboratory, in a collaboration with UCLA, researchers are tapping a novel AI approach to potentially deliver more accurate forecasts at a fraction of the computational cost of traditional models. For decades, weather forecasting has relied on complex…

Moore’s Law, which predicted the doubling of transistor density roughly every two years, is approaching fundamental physical limits. Yet, GPU technology continues to evolve rapidly, with innovations in architecture and specialized processing units driving consistent performance gains. Multi-chip modules, 3D chip stacking, and advanced cache hierarchies are pushing beyond monolithic die limitations. The first half…

Project yourself a few years into the future where artificial intelligence (AI) bots negotiate multi-million dollar commodity deals, reshaping entire industries. That’s the vision Teradata CEO Steve McMillan painted during a recent sponsored Reuters webinar titled “Building Trust in AI Starts with Trustworthy Data,” emphasizing that while most companies dabble in AI, true transformation requires…

Meta, the tech giant formerly known as Facebook, is once again making headlines with a significant restructuring of its Reality Labs division. The division, charged with bringing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse vision to life, will now be split into two distinct units: “Wearables” and “Metaverse.” This strategic shift comes amidst a series of workforce reductions…

What do frictionless parking experiences and life-saving drugs have in common? For data scientist June Guo, the answer lies in setting AI algorithms loose on vast troves of data. Before setting his sights on human biology, Guo worked at Metropolis Technologies, a company focused on transforming the parking experience through the use of advanced computer…

In 2023, the world’s top companies invested hefty sums in R&D, with tech giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta leading the pack. Amazon alone poured $85.622 billion into technology and infrastructure, which includes R&D. The Seattle-headquartered company’s spending reflects Amazon’s ambition to lead not just in e-commerce, but in a growing number of fields ranging…

Imagine a future where researchers discover groundbreaking materials with properties exceeding conventional expectations at an unprecedented pace. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are turning this vision into reality with a groundbreaking autonomous materials synthesis tool. The system marries the power of AI, automated experimentation, and real-time diagnostics to accelerate the hunt for new…

Apple made waves at WWDC 2024 by launching Apple Intelligence (beta coming in the fall), its answer to the booming generative AI space. But while this marks Apple’s public entry into the arena, the company has been quietly assembling an “AI army” behind the scenes for years, and continues to do so with more than…

While economic uncertainty and inflation continue to make headlines, the broader STEM job market remains resilient, channeling LL Cool J’s line: “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years.” Yes, there have been a wave of layoffs in the tech sector in 2023 and 2024, but the demand for STEM and R&D talent…

By Mike Connell, COO & Chief Digital Transformation Officer at Enthought Data is at the foundation of digital strategy Digital transformation is fundamentally changing the way we live, work and relate to each other, both personally and professionally. New entrants are disrupting established industries with novel, digitally enabled operating and business models seemingly overnight, and…

At the annual OCEANS 2021 in San Diego, Sofar Ocean Technologies, the world’s largest real-time ocean intelligence platform, introduced a new marine hardware standard, Bristlemouth, aimed at catalyzing more collaboration, research and innovation for big data from the oceans. Sofar CEO, Tim Janssen, will join partners from DARPA, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and…