The City of Adelaide
The South Australian Government has revealed it will invest $7.1 million to help the University of Adelaide establish a machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) research institute.
Of the $7.1 million, $1.5 million will go towards defence capability research projects.
The so-called Australian Institute for Machine Learning has already started to operate but will be relocated to the former Royal Adelaide Hospital premises in 2018.
The institute is expected to attract more than 200 researches, start-ups and “creative thinkers”.
The State Government believes the institute will help to deliver the fourth industrial revolution – the transformation of the global economy through artificial intelligence. It is also expected to give South Australia a global competitive advantage.
The University of Adelaide has signed a five-year lease, and during that time, it will dedicate a minimum of 18,000 research hours for projects which help the Government to improve productivity, efficiency and service delivery for South Australians.
“The University of Adelaide is already a world leader with the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies and the transition to this new institute will build further on the work being done as well as Adelaide’s reputation as an incubator of innovation,” Science and Information Economy Minister, Kyam Maher, said.
The institute will build on the university’s Australian Centre for Visual Technologies, known globally for its work in pedestrian detection for driverless car technology, semantic segmentation, used in driverless car technology, faces in the wild, used in defence and other technologies.
“This institute will directly support South Australian businesses and the Government to develop new products and services based on AI, such as driverless cars,” Maher added.
Professor Mike Brooks, University of Adelaide interim vice-chancellor, said: “The United States, Canada and the UK have all adopted a national strategy to fast-track the development of an artificial intelligence-enabled economy.
“China’s President has declared artificial intelligence and machine learning to be a top priority in the years ahead, and the eminent Shanghai Jiao Tong University is very keen to partner with us in this domain.”
