US government to pump $200M into "Big Data" R&D initiative
updated 11:15 pm EDT, Thu March 29, 2012
Funding promises to help "pressing challenges"
The Obama administration has announced a "Big Data" research and development initiative. The endeavor aims to improve the ability to "extract knowledge and insights" from large data sets and help solve some of the nation's "most pressing challenges."
The initiative involves collaboration between six federal departments and agencies, which will benefit from more than $200 million in new funding commitments. The money is said to be allocated for improving tools and techniques used to analyze large volumes of data.
The Department of Defense plans to expand its data analysis efforts with new projects that aim to improve autonomous systems that can make decisions on their own. Defense officials are also gunning for a "100-fold increase" in the ability to extract pertinent information from texts in any language.
The National Institutes of Health is also pushing for its 1000 Genomes Project data to be available through the Amazon Web Services cloud, while the Department of Energy will continue to expand the scope and complexity of its supercomputing projects. Other agencies that are expected to benefit from the initiative include the US Geological Survey, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation.
The agencies are expected to make further announcements in the near future.
