Artificial intelligence technology holds tremendous power in the field of scientific research. It allows everything from faster and more efficient data processing to more advanced simulations that allow scientists to replicate conditions that would not be easily achievable in a laboratory setting.
Yet, although artificial intelligence has the potential to make scientists' jobs easier, the truth of the industry is that those who need access to these tools the most are often restricted from doing so. AI models require large amounts of computing power, especially when they are as advanced as those used by scientific researchers.
However, access to this computing power is often only available to private companies and institutions with exuberant budgets, limiting the potential for smaller institutions to take advantage of this powerful technology. This is where tools like Project Robbie come into play—democratizing access to the tools scientists need to make life-saving and world-changing discoveries.
Project Robbie: Supercharging Scientific Research
Project Robbie is an artificial intelligence platform designed specifically for scientific researchers to provide them with the high-performance computing they need to handle experiments of any size without hassle. With scalable pricing affordable for labs of all sizes, Project Robbie is set to revolutionize the process of scientific research, making scientific discovery easier and more accessible than ever.
Project Robbie is the brainchild of tech industry veteran Siddhartha Rao and his team at Positron Networks. After more than a decade of experience at some of the most prestigious tech companies in the world, including Amazon Web Services, Rao founded Positron Networks with the ambition to help "democratize access to powerful computing resources and simplify the user experience so scientists can focus on science."
"New England Research Cloud (NERC) has established itself as a pivotal resource, empowering researchers with cutting-edge tools and infrastructure to drive scientific discovery and technological innovation; however, many of our researchers are not proficient in technologies like containers and Kubernetes," said Orran Krieger, Boston University Professor and Director of Mass Open Cloud Alliance. "We are pleased to work with Positron and Project Robbie to expand the number of researchers who can leverage our infrastructure."
Indeed, Project Robbie is designed to help everyone involved in scientific research, from individual researchers to labs and private institutions. Positron Networks worked with innovators at leading private companies, federal and state government agencies, and nonprofit organizations and universities to develop Project Robbie, which led to beta iterations of the platform being tested at a broad set of research institutions. This phase of the project allowed the team at Positron Networks to gather feedback from the front line of scientific researchers, ensuring that this tool is helpful for those who need it most.
"While researchers and students across various fields like chemistry, physics, social science, neurobiology, genetics, and public health are utilizing the NERC for their experiments, it takes time for them to learn the platform to get the most out of it," said Wayne Gilmore, NERC Co-Director and Executive Director, Research Computing, Information Services & Technology at Boston University. "Project Robbie gives our users a quick and easy way to launch AI training jobs and simulations and lessens the burden on our support staff."
How Project Robbie Helps Scientific Researchers
One of the most significant benefits of using the Project Robbie platform is that it offers fast and scalable results for scientific researchers. For example, when they use Project Robbie, researchers no longer need to worry about the complexities of cloud setup.
"Focus on science—we handle the infrastructure," says Rao. "From single experiments to full-scale studies, our platform scales to meet your computational needs." This allows low start-up time, efficient processing, parallel computing, and instant scalability.
Project Robbie also enables more seamless collaboration between teams, a key element to success in scientific research. After all, collaboration and peer review are an essential part of the scientific process, as they allow the brightest minds in the community to come together and discover solutions to some of our world's most difficult challenges. Using a free data upload feature, Project Robbie users can upload their data once and share it with their colleagues, with secure encryption, a multiple job data cache, and no size limitations.
Finally, Project Robbie offers a user-friendly interface that is highly intuitive and easy for scientific researchers to use. "The platform is designed to be entirely self-service, with no need for external IT support," explains Rao. "Researchers can manage everything independently, from setup to execution." The platform's setup is fully automated, the interface is simple and self-guided, and there is no need for third-party dependencies.
This ease of use extends to Project Robbie's seamless integration with existing tools and environments. Since the purpose of Project Robbie is to make scientists' jobs easier, forcing them to learn new tech to take advantage of this tool would be counterintuitive. The platform is designed to work seamlessly with tools that scientific researchers already know, such as Python and Jupyter, making setup easier and quicker and ensuring cross-platform compatibility.
Supercharge Your Research with Project Robbie
Now that Rao and his team at Positron Networks have released Project Robbie into the world, they are looking for more bright scientific minds to join the revolution. With a transactional pricing model that charges users based on the computing resources they need to support any given experiment or project, Project Robbie truly is the solution scientists need for research of every scale.
"Robbie's transparent pricing makes budgeting easy—no hidden fees, just clarity," Rao concludes. "Share resources with your team and control access to infrastructure, ensuring collaborators, like students, use GPUs efficiently without overspending. Robbie's ready to run! Are you ready to supercharge your research?"
