Data preparation is key to expanding military benefits of AI

When it comes to artificial intelligence and edge computing across the U.S. Department of Defense, we're no longer in the talking phase, we're in the doing phase. That's evidenced by the Joint All Domain Command and Control effort and the recent introduction of the DoD's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. Air traffic controllers can now use AI-type analytics to keep track of "good aircraft" (i.e., a passenger jets) and "questionable aircraft" (an unexpected aircraft moving in an unexpected manner such as traveling at Mach speed or even a weather balloon). Thanks to AI-driven image processing and its ability to analyze different characteristics of objects, including size, weight, speed and more, military commanders can gain better situational awareness and accurately determine whether an object seen from afar or on the radar is innocuous or a possible threat. All this information can be processed and delivered in near real-time, thanks to Field Programmable Gate Arrays, which is a fancy term for CPU accelerators.