New AI unit

New DOE Artificial Intelligence Hub to Harness AI in Daily PNNL Activities

The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will deploy artificial intelligence in its daily operations through its newly created Center for AI @PNNL, which is tasked to coordinate scientific research on science, security and energy resilience. According to PNNL, the center’s focus areas include AI use in autonomous experimentation, enabling robotic activity in analyzing results and outlining or even directing succeeding tasks.

PNNL announced that developing AI security solutions is also the center’s priority, following President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating new standards for AI safety and security.

The new center will operate in close coordination with another newly formed DOE unit, the Office of Critical and Emerging Technology, to develop ways for trustworthy AI use, PNNL said.

PNNL scientists’ AI security efforts are already part of the IEEE Ethics Certification Program for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, a program designed to ensure algorithms are bias-free. In addition, the PNNL noted that its AI experts have more than a dozen presentations at the annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in New Orleans.