AI or artificial intelligence is the next big thing in many industries today. The technology is infiltrating every sector and exponentially ramping up the tasks that computers can perform. As a result, even though jobs creation has been growing over the past few months, AI can significantly increase that expansion with a lot more American economic growth and high wage jobs! Starting from fitness-focused smartphone apps that adapt to women's menstrual cycle to autonomous vehicles that use sensors and software to dodge stray animals, AI has influenced every part of human life. It has evolved from being just a trend to a core ingredient virtually across every aspect of computing.

A Swedish physician who helped pioneer chemistry 200 years ago just got another opportunity to innovate. A supercomputer officially christened in honor of Jöns Jacob Berzelius aims to establish AI as a core technology of the next century. Berzelius (pronounced behr-zeh-LEE-us) invented chemistry's shorthand (think H20) and discovered a handful of elements including silicon. A 300-petaflops system now stands on the Linköping University (LiU) campus, less than 70 kilometers from his birthplace in south-central Sweden, like a living silicon tribute to innovations yet to come. "Many cities in Sweden have a square or street that bears Berzelius's name, but the average person probably doesn't know much about him," said Niclas Andersson, technical director at the National Supercomputer Centre (NSC) at Linköping University, which is home to the system based on the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD.

Despite a relatively widespread understanding that AI is an inevitable force for winning market share and serving customers, by name estimates some 80-90% of AI projects fail. When AI projects lead to successful deployments and strategic or measurable ROI, it isn't because the right vendor was chosen, or the right algorithm was used. It's because someone lead the charge and not only chose the right project – but won the trust and air cover needed to see it through to deployment. At Emerj, we refer to an "AI catalyst" as: Someone who leads their company to AI adoption and ROI. But what does it mean to "lead" in this context?