Kx Technology and the SETI Institute Teams Up with NASA Frontier Development Lab to Apply AI to Solve Space Related Challenges

The SETI Institute announced today that global technology specialist First Derivatives plc (FD) with its Kx technology will provide the analytics capability in partnership with Lockheed Martin and IBM on one of NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL) research teams this summer.

This year’s FDL teams will tackle three problem areas: planetary defense, space resources and space weather. The Solar Storm team will explore whether AI and sophisticated data processing and tagging tools can be deployed to make a significant breakthrough useful to either defending our planet from Asteroids and Solar Weather or enabling a new frontier of exploration by identifying suitable opportunities for extracting Lunar Water.

“FDL is a new model of innovation that acknowledges the astonishing rate of change in AI related technologies in the private sector” said FDL Director, James Parr. “Our goal is to show that meaningful work, with a high degree of utility to the space program and real world applications that affect all of us, can be done in a very short period of time, by using interdisciplinary techniques and partnering with leaders in AI from the private sector.”

In the era of Big Fast Data analytics, Kx technology has set industry benchmarks for speed and stability in high performance applications, with an ability to handle extreme volumes of historical and streaming data. These attributes are now increasingly recognized across a range of sectors, including Earth Observation, Industrial Internet of Things and MarTech.

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of FD commented: “Kx is well-suited to using Artificial Intelligence and machine learning techniques to generate actionable insights from vast quantities of data, making it the ideal analytics platform for these challenging programs. We are delighted to be working with NASA FDL’s other core technology partners to create meaningful solutions.”

About FD and Kx:

FD is a global technology provider with 20 years of experience working with some of the world’s largest finance, technology and energy institutions and employs over 1,700 people worldwide. The Group’s Kx technology is a leader in high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence. It delivers the best possible performance and flexibility for high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications for multiple industries including for earth observation analytics, finance, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing.

For more information about FD: www.firstderivatives.com.

For more information about Kx please visit www.kx.com. For general inquiries, write to info@kx.com.

About FDL:

FDL is an applied artificial intelligence research accelerator and public / private partnership between NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute. The program tackles knowledge gaps in space science by pairing machine learning expertise with astronomy and planetary science expertise at the PhD level. Interdisciplinary teams address tightly defined problems and the format encourages rapid iteration and prototyping to create outputs with meaningful application to the space program. FDL features partnerships with technology leaders in artificial intelligence from the private sector and academia. Partners bring advanced hardware, software and cloud-based resources, and provide coaching to research participants. Entering its second year, FDL strives to create research outcomes that support NASA research objectives, while simultaneously showcasing cutting-edge partner capabilities in deep learning and other machine learning approaches.

About the SETI Institute:

The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe and to apply the knowledge gained to inspire and guide present and future generations,” said Bill Diamond, President and CEO of SETI Institute. “Education is an important part of that mission. Our programs share the excitement of exploration, the joy of discovery, and wonders of the universe with children, educators, and adults.

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Contact information

For Kx Systems
Micky Izelaar
020 3837 3687
kxSystems@octopusgrp.com