IARPA and U.S. Army launch AGILE program

On October 7, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) — the research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory announced the launch of a program to engineer innovative, new computer architecture designs that will help the Intelligence Community (IC) execute its increasingly critical data analysis missions.

The Advanced Graphic Intelligence Logical Computing Environment (AGILE) program looks to:

  • Inspire a complete rethinking of computer architectures that will develop intelligent mechanisms for accessing, moving, and storing complex data streams and structures that enable efficient execution of data-analytic algorithms
  • Advance the predictive analysis of massive data from diverse sources and methods in a timely manner
  • Seed a new generation of computer architectures that will generate significant performance gains for the IC

 

“The start of this research means that we are now on the path to design computers that can process exponentially increasing amounts and sources of data,” said program manager Dr. William Harrod. “Using outside-the-box thinking, we aim to design computer architectures to address today’s data-intensive problems while generating important analytical insights in a timely way.”

Through a competitive Broad Agency Announcement, IARPA has awarded AGILE research contracts to the following teams:

  • Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
  • The Georgia Tech Research Corporation
  • Intel Federal LLC
  • The Trustees of Indiana University
  • Qualcomm Intelligent Solutions, Inc.
  • The University of Chicago

 

The AGILE test and evaluation team consists of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, all of which have extensive experience in evaluating design and performance of computer architectures.

Source: ODNI