C3 AI announces AI cybersecurity grant recipients

Today, C3 AI’s CEO Thomas Siebel announced the third group of Digital Transformation Institute (DTI) grant recipients to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies in hopes to combat emerging threats. 

As an organization, C3 AI provides enterprises with an AI Application platform they can use to create, deploy, and manage AI applications for use cases like fraud detection, network health, supply network optimization, energy management, and more. 

The grant was established in March 2020 by C3 AI, Microsoft, and some of the world’s leading universities. The goal is to engage the world’s top scientists through cash grants to encourage them to conduct research and train practitioners on AI, machine learning, Cloud computing, IoT, big data analytics, organizational behavior, public policy, and ethics. 

With C3 AI providing scientists with $57.25 million in contributions during its first five years of operation alone, the organization is now aiming to advance technological research into areas like AI, machine learning and cloud computing, so that enterprises and decision makers can leverage more optimal solutions. 

The DTI’s role in the development of AI cybersecurity  

The announcement comes as enterprise investments in AI continue to increase, with 56% of organizations reporting AI adoption in 2021 compared to 50% in 2020. 

It also coincides with the wider increase in cyber crime and organization’s struggle to contain advanced modern threats, with 1,862 data breaches taking place last year, an increase of 68% from the year before. 

Currently, the DTI grant is playing a role in incentivizing top AI and machine learning researchers around the world to come together and collaborate to find new solutions to modern threats.  

“The 2022 program has selected proposals that propose using AI and machine learning to identify and prevent a wide range of harmful cybersecurity and infrastructure challenges, including phishing and malware attacks,” Siebel said.

“Each recipient will receive grant funds to kick off their projects that use AI and machine learning to improve cybersecurity, harden information security, and secure critical infrastructure. These are among the most critical challenges facing business and government globally,” he added. 

Using AI to stop threat actors 

C3 AI is part of the enterprise artificial intelligence market which researchers valued at $4.68 billion in 2018 and anticipate will reach $53.06 billion by 2026 as more organizations invest in machine learning and artificial intelligence to generate insights into how to enhance their operations. 

One of C3 AI’s main competitors is Palantir, which offers a solution for enterprises called Foundry, with data and model integration to aid with deploying AI and ML models. Palantir was valued at $10.5 billion in 2020 

Another competitor is DataRobot with an AI cloud platform that can automatically create advanced machine learning models from visual AI, to text AI, and location AI, now valued at $6.3 billion after a $300 million investment. 

While these competitors have ample funding behind them, Siebel argues C3 AI’s flexibility and strategic partnerships differentiate it from competitors. 

“C3 AI provides transformative solutions across industries including defense, manufacturing, energy, and financial services. A leading enterprise AI software provider, the company solutions achieve results in just weeks, rather than years. C3 AI works with some of the world’s most influential organizations, including Adobe, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Accenture, and Shell.”

Universities contributing to the project include University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Stanford University, and University of Chicago.