Partnership strengthens the Institute’s connection to the energy sector
Urbana-Champaign, IL; Berkeley, CA, July 21, 2020 – The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, a new consortium of leading research universities and companies dedicated to accelerating the socioeconomic benefits of artificial intelligence, today announced that Baker Hughes has joined the Institute as an Industry Partner.
Baker Hughes, headquartered in Houston, TX, is an energy technology company serving the upstream, midstream, and downstream oil and gas sectors and other industrial segments with leading technology and services. Baker Hughes leverages its research and development to invent, accelerate, and collaborate to bring transformative technologies to market and solve some of the most complex challenges in energy design and manufacturing. Baker Hughes operates in more than 120 countries and reported annual revenue of $23.8 billion in 2019. Baker Hughes is accelerating the digital transformation of energy, making it safer, cleaner, and more efficient using AI applications together with alliance partners C3.ai and Microsoft.
“AI has the potential to solve many of today’s unique challenges,” said Uwem Ukpong, executive vice president of Regions, Alliances & Enterprise Sales at Baker Hughes. “Baker Hughes has joined the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute to support immediate efforts to advance AI research that seeks to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As an industry partner, Baker Hughes is also in a unique position to help C3.ai DTI encourage and fund research that addresses major challenges facing the energy industry.”
“We are pleased to welcome Baker Hughes to the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute and look forward to working with this world-class, innovative company that is leading digital transformation in the energy sector,” said Shankar Sastry, C3.ai DTI Co-Director and the Thomas M. Siebel Professor in Computer Science and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Bioengineering, and Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley.
“The Industry Partners Program fosters active collaboration between the private sector and the C3.ai DTI researchers,” said R. Srikant, C3.ai DTI Co-Director and the Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Members, including senior officials from companies and other stakeholder organizations, act as advisors, reviewers, and mentors, offering timely input on industrial and societal needs and trends.”
The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute Industry Partner Program enables leading companies from around the world to engage with C3.ai DTI researchers and C3.ai DTI activities. Industry Partners have the opportunity to contribute data sets that will be available for research after anonymization. Industry Partners are also encouraged to engage with Institute researchers and collaborate on research projects as well as participate in the annual C3.ai DTI Conference and attend Industry Short Courses.
Industry Partners contribute $100,000 per year to support C3.ai DTI’s operations and research, curriculum development, and education programs. Industry Partners have access to research projects funded by the C3.ai DTI and help guide the strategic direction of the Institute through participation in its Executive Committee.
About the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute
Established in March 2020 by C3.ai, Microsoft, and leading universities, the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute is a research consortium dedicated to accelerating the benefits of artificial intelligence for business, government, and society. The Institute engages the world’s leading scientists to conduct research and train practitioners in the new Science of Digital Transformation, which operates at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, internet of things, big data analytics, organizational behavior, public policy, and ethics.
The nine C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute consortium member universities and laboratories are: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of California, Berkeley; Carnegie Mellon University; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Princeton University; Stanford University; and University of Chicago.
Industry partners include C3.ai and Microsoft. To support the Institute, C3.ai is providing the Institute $57,250,000 in cash contributions over the first five years of operation. C3.ai and Microsoft will contribute an additional $310 million of in-kind support, including use of the C3 AI Suite and Microsoft Azure computing, storage, and technical resources to support C3.ai DTI research.