api cluster

Hub in Artificial Intelligence and its Practical Applications (AIPA)

Find out more about our expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The University of Portsmouth’s Artificial Intelligence and its Practical Applications (AIPA) Hub brings together diverse areas of expertise in the development and use of AI from across the university. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long been an active and exciting branch of research. Now more than ever, AI is in the spotlight as a technology that is about to make a significant impact on all aspects of life.

AI’s practical applications touch us all on a daily basis, and its effects spread across a whole range of societal and industrial sectors. From health and wellbeing to entertainment and education, from business and logistics, recent and ongoing advancements in the field mean that businesses and industries are increasingly looking at the ways that AI research can be used to innovate the workplace and society in general.

The Hub comprises more than 50 academic staff from all five faculties of the university.

Strategic alignment

The Hub has been formed at an exciting time for both the development and application of AI. The UK’s first National AI Strategy sets out the use of AI to increase resilience, productivity, growth and innovation across the private and public sectors. The University of Portsmouth is well aligned to the strategy through its work on AI's fundamentals and applications across diverse sectors and industries.

The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Challenge Fund addresses big societal challenges grouped around four core topics; artificial intelligence and data, ageing society, clean growth, and the future of mobility. While the first of these challenges aims to put the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution, the other three are all likely to be increasingly influenced by the developments in AI.

The AIPA Hub is strategically well-placed to support cross-disciplinary collaboration, as well as encouraging external projects and partnerships, thereby stimulating economic growth within the wider community.

Vision

The AIPA Hub aims to consolidate capability in the development and use of AI across the University of Portsmouth. It brings together dispersed colleagues with expertise in AI techniques or an interest in the application of AI in their own disciplines. 

By bringing together such a spectrum of experience and expertise in the development and use of AI, the Hub helps to provide coherence and coordination to the University’s research and innovation objectives. It helps to build cross-disciplinary linkages, facilitate external partnerships, and attract AI-related funding.

Adrian Hopgood

Expertise in AI at the University is dispersed among areas where it can make a positive impact, from business to health and from engineering to the arts. I am excited about the AIPA Hub as it brings together those practical perspectives and our fundamental AI research specialisms in a coordinated manner. AIPA comprises more than 50 academics across the disciplines. The diffuse nature of the University’s expertise could have been a weakness, but AIPA turns it into a strength.

Professor Adrian Hopgood, Theme Director, Future & Emerging Technologies

Aims

The AIPA Hub has been set up with two key aims in mind; the development of tools and the development of applications.

Development of AI tools:

  • knowledge-based intelligence
  • computational intelligence
  • machine learning
  • big data
  • agents
  • hybrids 

Development of AI applications for: 

  • health and wellbeing, incl. the ageing population
  • sustainability and the environment, incl. transport and logistics
  • security and risk, incl. ethical considerations
  • democratic citizenship, incl. education, governance, and management
  • future and emerging technologies, incl. physics & cosmology

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