Focus Areas
AERI serves as a catalyst for interdisciplinary and responsible AI efforts across the University of Missouri. Its functions integrates research, infrastructure, training and partnerships into a unified model that advances the university’s leadership in AI by bridging AI Developers, AI Users and AI Infrastructure. By bringing together expertise from engineering, science, medicine, agriculture, journalism, education and the social sciences, the center will transform siloed innovations into shared breakthroughs.
AERI’s work will be organized around primary focus areas:
Foundational AI
Advancing AI architectures, pioneering confidential computing and ethical deployment of AI with explainability, interpretability, security/adversarial robustness and trustworthiness across applications.
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- Accelerating materials discovery
Usable AI
Designing and deploying real-world solutions such as AI for data-driven journalism, materials discovery, advanced wireless systems and assistive educational systems that personalize learning at scale.
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- Making AI-based scientific predictions more trustworthy
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- Protecting global chip supply chains from cyber threats
- Preparing neurodivergent learners for cybersecurity careers
AI-ready testbeds
Creating environments for rapid development and evaluation of AI applications using generative AI, AR/VR and smart-edge/cloud computing platforms. These testbeds will not only drive interdisciplinary research but also provide critical infrastructure to position AERI as a center for large-scale collaborative grants and training initiatives.
The Mizzou CAVE is an NSF-funded immersive virtual reality (VR) system at the University of Missouri-Columbia, with a synchronized motion tracking system to foster interdisciplinary research and education around a common theme of “dynamic decision making and learning.” More information about the Mizzou CAVE project can be found here.
The Mizzou Remote Instrumentation Science Environment (Mizzou RISE) is a large-scale computational storage system at the University of Missouri with storage capacity of approximately 1.6 PetaBytes. Mizzou RISE supports multiple scientific application storage needs for materials science, biomedical science and other research activities on campus. RISE serves as a shared resource at the intra-campus level located at the campus datacenter and at the inter-campus level via a federated data sharing fabric. More information about the Mizzou RISE project can be found here.
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AI Workforce Training
Innovative training and outreach to prepare professionals with the skills needed to lead in the AI era.
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