Illinois, IBM Ready to Push the Boundaries of What's Possible in Computing

Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and Illinois Computer Science Department Head, Nancy M. Amato, didn’t hesitate when describing her work associated with the new IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute as “one of the broadest research projects I have ever been associated with.”

Considering her research career spans more than 30 years at some of the most influential entities in academia and industry, these words have deep meaning.

Amato’s description also speaks perfectly to the potential for the Discovery Accelerator Institute, which includes a 10-year agreed-upon collaboration supported through $200 million in funding. At its core, the accelerator will combine the strengths of academia and the industrial sector to spur breakthroughs in emerging areas of technology. It is one of the main global centers in IBM’s growing ecosystem of partners seeking to accelerate scientific progress with advanced technology.

It will do so by pairing faculty and students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, housed within The Grainger College of Engineering, with IBM researchers to form large-scale research collaborations in the areas of Hybrid Cloud and AI, Quantum Computing, Materials Discovery, and Sustainability.

Amato’s project, entitled “Robots on the (Mobile) Edge and in the Hybrid Cloud,” involves seven other Illinois faculty, including: Katie Driggs-Campbell, Liangyan Gui, Julia Hockenmaier, Robin Kravets, Marco Morales Aguirre, Lawrence Rauchwerger, and Yuxiong Wang.

Additionally, seven IBM researchers - Dhiraj Joshi, Dinesh Verma, Jose Moreira, Nirmit Desai, Shiqiang Wang, Divyesh Jadav, Luis Bathen - will collaborate with the faculty. Several students will also play an active role in developing this research.

The goal is to develop adaptive cyber-physical systems in which robot teams collaborate with humans and other robots to perform complex tasks in structured and instrumented industrial settings, such as factories and fulfillment centers. Amato said they are also investigating remote operation. Methods developed for such structured industrial settings are the first step on the path to deployment of robotic assistants in office, commercial and home environments.

A distinguishing feature of this project is the complex computational environment. It includes the robots and the edge, or the environment surrounding the robots, which contains sensors and computational devices allowing communication and the passage of data. Finally, it will incorporate the use of the cloud, for larger computational capacity and to provide access to both proprietary and shareable resources.

“The immense scope of these efforts is why we require a really broad team. These efforts include experts in robotics, computer vision, AI and human computer interaction, wireless networking and high performance computing. What's so exciting about work like this, is it represents the next step of an already impactful relationship that we've had with IBM. The IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute is going to allow us to have a huge impact in emerging areas of computing, as well as some of our mainstays that we've been long-standing leaders in.”

 

Nancy M. Amato, Department Head, Computer Science

Officially announced in May 2021, Amato’s project is one of 13 that currently involve Illinois CS faculty.

Of those projects, 11 reside in the Hybrid Cloud & AI research area, which Amato said points to the breadth and depth of Illinois CS faculty established in it.

“This is a testament to our leadership in this field; that we really do have a large number of faculty, some of the very best researchers in the world, focused on that area,” Amato said.

While projects within the Hybrid Cloud & AI have accumulated quickly, Amato points out that CS faculty will reach far beyond it to impact the Discovery Accelerator Institute.

“We’re tremendously excited to see a focus on other areas that push the boundaries of what we are all capable of through collaborative, multidisciplinary work,” she said. “Quantum Computing is one example, for which we will pair with IBM and academic researchers in Illinois departments like Physics and Electrical & Computer Engineering. Then there’s Materials Discovery, which increasingly relies on computational tools to effectively conduct research.

“It’s amazing to engage in so many different types of projects.”

Utilizing that collaborative spirit will be integral to expanding the entire project’s scope.

*Computer Science faculty and affiliate faculty