NETL Director Brian Anderson, Ph.D., and other Lab personnel will exchange information and ideas with industry, universities, investors and end-use customers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) InnovationXLab Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit Oct. 2-3, at the historic Drake Hotel in Chicago.

The AI Summit, hosted by Argonne National Laboratory, will convene industry leaders from the energy, transportation, manufacturing and health care sectors, public officials and researchers from DOE national laboratories to discuss how advanced AI tools and machine learning (ML) techniques can support business transformation and drive economic growth.

The continued leadership of the United States in AI is of paramount importance to maintain economic and national security, and events such as the InnovationXLab AI Summit are highlighting how business and industry can leverage the power of DOE’s national laboratories and AI to enrich the lives of Americans.

The DOE enterprise is home to the fastest and most powerful supercomputers in the world, uniquely positioning the agency to push the limits of AI to have a positive impact on the nation. For example, NETL is home to JOULE 2.0, a 4-petaflop system that allows researchers to model energy technologies, simulate challenging phenomena and solve sophisticated problems using computational tools that save time and money to ensure that technology development ultimately proves successful.

NETL has also created a Center for Data Analytics and Machine Learning, which allows researchers to explore problems using AI, ML, data mining and data analytics techniques. The center features a petascale machine designed to house, transport and process up to 37 petabytes of data using cutting-edge algorithms developed in-house and with external collaborators.

DOE-fueled AI is already being applied broadly across the agency’s core missions. This research is strengthening national security and cybersecurity, improving grid resiliency and emergency response, and increasing energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. NETL’s recent AI- and ML-related achievements include rapidly screening advanced carbon capture materials to decrease the cost of the technology and leading a multi-lab initiative called eXtremeMAT that is using data analytics to develop and deploy new alloy materials that are affordable and perform reliably under the harsh environments encountered in power plants, among many others.

On the second day of the summit, NETL’s Deputy Director and Chief Research Officer Randall Gentry, Ph.D., will moderate a panel titled, “AI for Energy Production,” which will explore transformative problems in energy generation from renewable energy sources to oil and gas. Participants, which include industry leaders, will showcase applications of AI in combination with supercomputing to solve these problems.

“We look forward to learning from the other attendees and sharing our own cutting-edge AI work,” Anderson said. “This kind of event helps NETL and the other national labs make a real connection with industry that can lead to commercial applications of our research and technologies.”