The University of Oxford is delighted to announce a new strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), supported by a £7 million gift to the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division.
The collaboration will focus on building a portfolio of new research projects relating to AI, robotics, cyber-physical systems and human-centred computing, with AWS also providing support for the University’s new Lighthouse Doctoral Scholarship Programme.
Oxford has a vibrant, large and growing programme in data science, AI and robotics research and development. To support and inspire both students and staff, access to fast-moving, state-of-the-art, large-scale computing resources is critical. AWS, one of the leading global cloud providers, offers secure, reliable, scalable, low-cost cloud infrastructure that underpins millions of customers around the world. As such, this new university-industry collaboration will accelerate advances in AI and data science across the entire research portfolio of the University.
Professor Patrick Grant, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Oxford, said: ‘Cloud computing is an essential part of modern research. A streamlined operating model for using cloud services will benefit all of our researchers. The Oxford Robotics Institute, the Cyber Physical Systems Group, and the Human Centred Computing Group are leading the initial projects in the short term, but I look forward to growing the collaboration to bring research benefits across our research work more broadly.’
Max Peterson, VP International Sales Worldwide Public Sector at AWS, said: ‘We are excited about this collaboration with the University of Oxford. With AWS, the University will be able to accelerate time-to-science as multiple, large experiments can be conducted in parallel with greater ease and in less time. And by driving cost down, researchers can dramatically increase the scale of computational experimentation. The collaboration demonstrates how academia can use the cloud to deliver excellent science with greater speed, flexibility and security, compared to using on-premises data centres.’
AWS’s donation will also support a new generation of researchers accessing cloud-native tools and technology for research through the University’s Lighthouse Doctoral Scholarship Programme. The programme will provide funding to 25 DPhil students applying to the Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems, or to the research laboratories of the supervisors in the Human-Machine Collaboration Initiative.