Using deep learning to forecast ocean waves

Scientists have made amazing advances enabling machines to understand language and process images for such applications as facial recognition, image classification (e.g., "cat" or "dog") and translation of texts. Work in the IBM Research lab in Dublin this summer was focused on a very different problem: using AI techniques such as deep learning to forecast a physical process, namely, ocean waves. Traditional physics-based models are driven by external forces: The tides rise and fall, winds blow in different directions, the depth and physical properties of water influence the speed and height of the waves. These physical processes and their relationships are encapsulated in the differential equations that are coded into numerical models of wave transport. The nature of the computations typically demands High Performance Computing infrastructure to resolve the equations.