Positron Networks Unveils Project Robbie: A New Era for AI and Machine Learning Workflows

Scientific research is a competitive landscape. Although our world’s most brilliant minds are working to find solutions for some of the world’s most pressing problems, the status quo of the research industry is that they compete for limited resources and funding. While the emergence of artificial intelligence technology promises to equalize the landscape and allow scientists to conduct more experiments more efficiently, the truth of this AI-driven future isn’t quite as simple as one would hope.

Unfortunately, the computing resources scientists would need to harness the full potential of these tools are anything but democratic. Many of the most powerful servers in the scientific industry are owned by corporations — not public institutions — meaning that they are, first and foremost, used to serve private interests. Researchers in public institutions often do not have the ability to run the most advanced AI models because they do not have the computing power to support them.

That’s not to mention the challenge of technical overhead that scientific researchers face when adopting new technologies, including artificial intelligence. The goal of technological innovation is to streamline processes and make people’s jobs easier, but if a researcher has to learn new skills to use an AI tool, is that tool actually beneficial to researchers, or does it cause more of a headache for researchers than it does relief?

The innovative new scientific computing platform Project Robbie was developed with these issues in mind. Project Robbie is a platform created by Positron Networks to revolutionize how researchers and engineers tackle AI and machine learning workloads and provide scientific researchers with scalable, user-friendly tools to accelerate their experiments. With the help of Project Robbie, researchers can manage large-scale experiments more efficiently and cost-effectively.

“Researchers and developers face increasing challenges with traditional solutions — insufficient GPU power, long wait times, complex billing, and steep learning curves,” said Sid Rao, CEO of Positron Networks, in a recent press release. “Project Robbie was built to remove these barriers, offering a simple, scalable, and secure platform tailored to the needs of scientists and engineers.”

How Project Robbie helps scientific researchers supercharge their research

The team at Positron Networks designed Project Robbie to be as intuitive as possible for scientific researchers, allowing them to hit the ground running and “supercharge” their research. For example, Project Robbie is compatible with several popular tools and environments researchers already use, such as Python and Jupyter. The platform also requires no cloud setup and offers easy data integration, enabling seamless collaboration between researchers and their peers. As a result, researchers can pick up the platform in no time with no need for additional training.

Ultimately, these features allow scientific researchers to focus on what matters most: conducting experiments and making discoveries that will save lives and change the world. Project Robbie is designed with efficiency in mind, with the goal of accelerating science by helping researchers conduct experiments in a matter of minutes, not days. According to estimates by Positron Networks, researchers using Project Robbie can expect to conduct as many as five times the number of experiments they would have done without the platform’s power.

“While researchers and students across various fields like chemistry, physics, social science, neurobiology, genetics, and public health are utilizing the New England Research Cloud (NERC) for their experiments, it takes time for them to learn the platform to get the most out of it,” Wayne Gilmore, NERC Co-Director and Executive Director, Research Computing, Information Services & Technology at Boston University Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, told Science Daily last month. “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.”

From a successful beta to a wide launch

Project Robbie has already shown great success in its beta program, which allowed Positron Networks to engage with leading research institutions, private industry entities, and government agencies. Through this process, the Positron team has gotten keen insight into the needs and desires of scientific researchers. In doing so, they have optimized the Project Robbie platform to deliver researchers the tools they need to discover and innovate.

As Project Robbie is set to launch beyond its beta program, the team at Positron Networks is committed to offering a transparent, pay-as-you-go pricing model. Researchers purchase credits to pay for the computing power their experiments require; if they require more computing power, they can purchase more credits. This structure allows Project Robbie to be a scalable option that fits the needs of researchers at all levels and backgrounds, from individuals to laboratories and government or educational institutions.

Indeed, after its success in the beta stage, the team at Positron Networks looks forward to launching Project Robbie on a broader scale this spring. By providing scientific researchers with the resources they need to power advanced computations, Rao and his team hope to make it easier for researchers to handle experiments of any size.

“Project Robbie is more than a tool; it’s a game-changer for research teams struggling with the inefficiencies of current systems,” Rao concludes. “Robbie is ready to run. Are you?”