MITER announces AI sandbox for federal agencies

By the end of the year, an artificial intelligence sandbox built by MITER should be operational for use by federal agencies, according to an announcement Tuesday by the nonprofit organization.

MITER, which operates federally funded R&D centers on behalf of agencies, announced at the AI ​​Expo for National Competitiveness that it plans to apply the sandbox to “national security, healthcare health, transport and climate,” according to the press release. The sandbox will be powered by NVIDIA’s AI data center infrastructure.

MITER said it provides federal entities access to the tool’s benefits through existing contracts with R&D centers the organization operates with agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Institute National Standards and Technologies, Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration and others.

Charles Clancy, senior vice president and chief technology officer at MITRE, referenced President Joe Biden’s October executive order on AI, which outlines a series of responsibilities and deadlines for agencies to use the technology and support its implementation. Agencies “often lack the IT environment necessary for implementation and prototyping,” Clancy said.

“Our new Federal AI Sandbox will help level the playing field, making the high-quality computing power needed to train and test custom AI solutions available to any agency,” he said. added.

The sandbox provides computing power capable of training AI applications such as large language models and other generative AI tools for government use, according to the press release.

MITER said the supercomputer is also capable of “training multimodal perception systems capable of understanding and processing information from multiple types of data at once,” including images, environmental and medical sensors, text, radars and much more.

Tuesday’s announcement comes nearly two months after the nonprofit announced the opening of a facility to test the government’s use of AI to detect possible risks through experimentation as a red team and as a human in the loop.