The Pentagon Will Use AI to Predict Panic Buying, COVID-19 Hotspots

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that "just-in-time" supply lines don't always operate as they should. Fortune 500 companies use predictive analytics to improve their ability to deal with the unexpected -- and now so do planners with U.S. Northern Command. The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, or JAIC, has built a prototype AI tool that uses a wide variety of data streams to predict COVID-19 hotspots and related logistics and supply-chain problems. "You have to be looking a little in the future," said Nand Mulchandani, chief technical officer at the JAIC. Dubbed Salus, for the Roman goddess of health and well-being, the tool can work on a scale as wide as the entire nation but can also drill down on specific zip codes and, in some cases, individual stores, said Mulchandani.