UCSB receives four-year federal grant for artificial intelligence cloud laboratory

A federally funded artificial intelligence program will give researchers from anywhere in the country access to equipment at OASIS, a technology and science hub for UC Santa Barbara students and startup companies.

The four-year grant will fund an AI-programmable cloud laboratory at the UCSB facility that can be accessed remotely by any researcher in the country.

Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara announced the federal grant on Friday to a group of UCSB administrators and faculty in the Robert Mehrabian college of engineering outside the OASIS facility, 71 S. Los Carneros Road in Goleta.

“You can run research from anywhere at any time,” said Javier Read de Alaniz, a professor in the UCSB department of chemistry and biochemistry.

Read de Alaniz is also a co-director of BioPACIFIC MIP, a federally funded program for synthetic biology, chemistry and materials science research. BioPACIFIC MIP is partnered with UCSB, and it was selected to receive the AI program.

Universities such as Stanford, Cal Tech and Scripps are also operating the AI-programable cloud lab. 

“This is a big freaking deal,” Carbajal said. 

UCSB has operated its OASIS facility in Goleta since last fall, and includes student researchers as well as private and public companies.