The National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force convened its third virtual public meeting to further develop a vision and implementation plan for the NAIRR. Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Ian Foster (Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago), was invited to speak about the recently published A National Discovery Cloud: Preparing the US for Global Competitiveness in the New Era of 21st Century Digital Transformation white paper.  In addition, 84 responses from industry, academia, and government stakeholders were recently released regarding the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation request for information to develop an implementation roadmap for the NAIRR. […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and ACM SIGAI sponsored a virtual workshop, entitled Artificial Intelligence / Operations Research Workshop to provide a space for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Operations Research (OR) to discuss a joint strategic vision for a strong and sustained collaboration between the two fields. Organized by Sanmay Das (George Mason University), John Dickerson (University of Maryland), Pascal Van Hentenryck (Georgia Tech), Sven Koenig (University of Southern California), Ramayya Krishnan (Carnegie Mellon University), Radhika Kulkarni (SAS Institute, Inc. – retired), Phebe Vayanos (University of Southern California) the workshop was held on September 24th – 25th, 2021. There […]

The following is a recent message to the community from Lynne E. Parker, Director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office and Assistant Director of Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Dear Colleagues, I’m happy to report that OSTP released a blueprint for a National Strategic Computing Reserve.  This concept is modeled after the highly successful COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, which advanced COVID-19 research during the early days of the pandemic. Report direct link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/National-Strategic-Computing-Reserve-Blueprint-Oct2021.pdf NSTC site which includes the new report: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/nstc/ OSTP tweet link: https://twitter.com/WHOSTP/status/1445440967264321536 Feel free to share the news with your interested colleagues. Best regards, Lynne

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is currently accepting proposals for their National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institutes program. By offering funding for AI Research Institutes the program seeks to strengthen the national AI research network and drive advancements in multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder research on large-scale, long-term research frontiers in AI.  Institutions of higher education (including community colleges) and non-profit, non-academic organizations are eligible to apply. Further details on eligibility and proposal requirements can be found on the NSF website. This round of institute proposals MUST focus on one of these high-priority themes:  Intelligent Agents for Next-Generation Cybersecurity  Neural and Cognitive Foundations of Artificial Intelligence  AI for Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry AI […]

The following is joint Dear Colleague Letter from Assistant Directors at the National Science Foundation about innovative solutions to climate change. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) released a whitepaper in August 2021 on Computing Research for the Climate Crisis, coauthored by Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University), Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado Boulder), and Claire Monteleoni (University of Colorado Boulder and a CCAI Advisor), to highlight the role of computing research in addressing climate change-induced challenges. See the full whitepaper here.  Dear Colleagues: This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) encourages the science and engineering communities to develop forward-thinking research that will demonstrably aid in the Nation’s goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions […]

The following is a guest blog post from Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Kathleen Fisher (Tufts University). Going to DARPA as a Program Manager (PM) is a great opportunity to make a difference by creating and managing a program much bigger in scope than what an individual faculty member can do at a university. Other PMs are talented and innovative thinkers who come from a broad range of backgrounds. Exposure to them and to the range of problems DARPA is reckoning with can be eye-opening. In the following paragraphs, I describe my experiences serving as a PM to convey a sense of what the job is like and why […]