With two uncannily prescient keynotes and some of the top AI cybersecurity researchers in the country, the C3.ai Digital Research Institute held its first in-person event since its launch at the start of the pandemic in 2020. The March 22-24 event in Miami, FL, brought 125 participants from around the country representing academia, industry, and government. 

Chess champion and Human Rights Foundation Chairman Garry Kasparov, a native of the Soviet Union and a cybersecurity expert, presented a keynote on the evolution of machine intelligence – he famously competed with Deep Blue in his chess career – and how “humanity will always win” in the future of technology. 

U.S. Cyber Command Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Charles L. Moore, Jr., a former fighter pilot, spoke on the threat of cyberattacks. “My first F-16 instructor pilot used to always tell me, ‘In air combat, speed is life,’” said Moore. “I will tell you, in this domain it’s absolutely the same. We’re working very hard on the ways to use AI to recognize what’s important, augment our collection, and analyze and share this data and information, at the speed and scale of relevance.”

On the last day, Institute leadership announced 24 awards for DTI’s third call for proposals, for research projects using AI to transform cybersecurity and to secure critical infrastructure. Several researchers whose projects had been awarded were able to join a panel discussing challenges in the field from anomaly detection and malware to insider threats.

The symposium was designed to coincide with C3 AI’s annual conference, to facilitate discussions between industry and AI researchers. An industry panel featured C3 AI Chairman and CEO Thomas M. Siebel and LyondellBasell Senior Vice President of Global Business Service Anup Sharma.

“This gathering we’re having turns out to be more timely than we thought,” said Siebel, given heightened global tensions. Addressing the cybersecurity experts in the audience in particular, he added, “You’d better put the pedal to the metal, because the problems you are working on are absolutely existential.”

Additional panels and research presentations covered results from the first two rounds of awarded research projects – the first, for AI to mitigate COVID-19 and future pandemics, and the second, for AI to advance energy and climate security. 

Watch videos of all sessions on the 2022 C3.ai DTI Research Symposium playlist on DTI’s YouTube channel at YouTube.com/C3DigitalTransformationInstitute.