The Insight Centre for Data Analytics in UCD has announced a new colloborative research project with Samsung Electronics estimated to be worth approximately €4 million. The Insight Centre for Data Analytics is a joint initiative between researchers at UCD, NUI Galway, UCC, DCU, and other partner institutions. The €75 million Research Centre is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and a wide range of industry partners.
The research project is set to centre around artificial intelligence (AI). AI systems, such as recommender systems, play an important role in today’s information rich world and in many aspects of our lives. They influence the movies we watch and the music we listen to. With the advent of mobile and wearable technologies recommender systems even influence our behaviour in the physical world, helping us to live healthier lives by influencing the food we eat and the exercise we take.
The 3-year research project will be led by Professor Barry Smyth, Dr Aonghus Lawlor and Associate Professor Neil Hurley and will involve a team of over 25 researchers and highly-skilled staff from Samsung and UCD, and will result in the establishment of 12 new research posts at UCD. A key feature of this collaborative project will be the transfer of research skills between staff at Samsung and UCD. In addition there will be career placement opportunities at Samsung’s research facilities in the UK and in South Korea for the talented pool of computer and data science students from the Insight Centre for Data Analytics.
Dr Aonghus Lawlor, Assistant Professor, UCD School of Computer Science and a funded investigator, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, and a lead researcher on this research project said, “We are particularly excited to be working with Samsung on leading-edge topics in recommender systems such as on-device privacy-preserving recommendation systems with the ability to explain their suggestions to end-users.”
Professor Orla Feely, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact said, “I warmly welcome today’s announcement of this exciting new research collaboration between Samsung and the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at UCD. This research project will leverage UCD’s internationally recognised strength and expertise in recommender systems which will underpin new artificial intelligence applications for Samsung’s customers and users. The announcement also reinforces UCD’s strategy of building a portfolio of strategic and mutually beneficial partnerships with international industry partners, such as Samsung, to deliver global impact.”
Oliver Daniels CEO, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, said, “Insight is looking forward to collaborating with Samsung over the next 3-years on this strategic research project. This collaboration will see us working together in areas of AI and deep recommendations to enable Samsung leverage our world-leading research capabilities to provide significant impact and business benefit to the company.”
Rachel O’Neill – Editor
