The U.S. government appears to be going all out in its quest to leverage the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it searches for innovative methods to stimulate the economy. The government on Thursday announced that it will create special AI task force that will witness participation from top U.S. companies as well as representatives from government agencies.
The announcement was made during the AI summit that was hosted in the historic White House. This was the first time that an AI summit was been held in American President’s official office. Representative from some of the top U.S. tech companies including Google, Amazon and Microsoft reportedly participated in the summit.
This special AI task force will be supervised by the National Science and Technology Council. Although no concrete blueprint for the task force was laid out during the summit, some important goals that this task force needs to achieve over the years were certainly discussed. There is so far no report either about how much budget the U.S government intends to allot to this task force.
Commenting on AI’s potential, Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios said: As artificial intelligence transforms everything from agriculture to manufacturing to transportation, the potential for AI remains breathtaking. He further added “But we cannot be passive. To realize the full potential of AI for the American people, it will require the combined efforts of industry, academia, and government.”
Other countries have jumped on AI bandwagon as well
Several other important economies across the world have already started making efforts to get their acts together on the AI front. U.K government recently announced that it would spend more than $1.3 billion to foster research and development activities on AI, while other countries across Europe have announced similar initiatives.
Asian giants China and India have also made it clear that they don’t want to lag behind in the AI race. Beijing has already announced it wants to become power to reckon with in AI technology by 2030. Indian government, on other hand, has announced various initiatives to prompt AI’s development in the country.
Separately, top tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are also carrying out private research on AI.