The AI Innovation Consortium (AIIC) wrapped up its 2-day hybrid event at the University of Houston, College of Technology at Sugar Land. Sponsored by Evolve 2021, Industry leaders from the largest and most innovative companies met on Aug. 12 and 13 to present and discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming in the global economy.
Since AI has become the foundation of the digital revolution, the goal of the AIIC is to find the most effective ways for AI to drive companies, organizations, and communities into the future. According to the AIIC’s guiding principles, the organization strives to create standards and best practices that propel AI adoption by evolving privacy, data governance and bias that effectively allow AI to be used in the most efficient way in a company’s business model.
One industry that is using AI to meet its business needs is in Supply Chain and Logistics. Companies tackle many challenges when it comes to demand forecasting. Determining what the demand is, producing a product, and shipping materials out to the consumer is a dynamic and complex process. Companies are using AI that learn from data to determine what the demand is for a product so that manufactures and suppliers can prepare appropriately. According to Jerry Chen, Head of Business Development, Manufacturing and Industrials, NVIDIA, large companies like Walmart face enormous obstacles with their demand forecasting. “They need to be able to do a decent demand production for about 500 million item-by-store combinations just in the U.S. alone,” Chen said. He added that the company has achieved substantial success using a variety of machine-learning tools.
The Dean of the College of Technology, Anthony Ambler, Ph.D., played an integral part with Konrad Konarski, Chairperson of the AIIC, to open an AI Digital Oilfields lab at the Sugar Land campus. The AI Digital Oilfields lab allows faculty, students, and industry professionals to research and study a variety of machine-learning technologies.