go to top scroll for more

Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number	EP/Y029763/1
Title	AI for Productive Research & Innovation in eLectronics (APRIL) Hub
Status	Started
Energy Categories	Not Energy Related 95%; Energy Efficiency(Industry) 5%;
Research Types	Basic and strategic applied research 90%; Training 10%;
Science and Technology Fields	PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Statistics and Operational Research) 20%; PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Computer Science and Informatics) 20%; ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) 60%;
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation	Not Cross-cutting 100%
Principal Investigator	Professor T Prodromakis Sch of Engineering and Electronics University of Edinburgh
Award Type	Standard
Funding Source	EPSRC
Start Date	01 February 2024
End Date	31 January 2029
Duration	60 months
Total Grant Value	£10,274,262
Industrial Sectors	Information Technologies
Region	Scotland
Programme	Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Investigators	Principal Investigator	Professor T Prodromakis , Sch of Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh (99.989%)
	Other Investigator	Professor M O'Neill , Electronics, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Queen's University Belfast (0.001%) Professor MM de Souza , Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Sheffield (0.001%) Dr J Cole , Physics, University of Cambridge (0.001%) Professor B Rajendran , Engineering, King's College London (0.001%) Dr CS Bouganis , Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%) Professor VP Georgiev , College of Science and Engineering, University of Glasgow (0.001%) Professor K Eder , Computer Science, University of Bristol (0.001%) Professor M O'Boyle , Sch of Informatics, University of Edinburgh (0.001%) Dr S Ramamoorthy , Sch of Informatics, University of Edinburgh (0.001%) Dr R Shafik , Sch of Engineering, Newcastle University (0.001%) Professor Dame W Hall , Sch of Electronics and Computer Sc, University of Southampton (0.001%)
	Industrial Collaborator	Project Contact , ANSYS Europe Limited (0.000%) Project Contact , Jeol UK Ltd (0.000%) Project Contact , BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies Limited (0.000%) Project Contact , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) (0.000%) Project Contact , Intel Corporation, USA (0.000%) Project Contact , STMicroelectronics, Switzerland (0.000%) Project Contact , Siemens AG, Germany (0.000%) Project Contact , Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA (0.000%) Project Contact , The MathWorks Inc, USA (0.000%) Project Contact , Thales UK Limited (0.000%) Project Contact , Leonardo (UK) (0.000%) Project Contact , Synopsys Inc, USA (0.000%) Project Contact , Samsung Electronics Research Institute (0.000%) Project Contact , Keysight Technologies (International) (0.000%) Project Contact , Pragmatic Semiconductor Limited (0.000%) Project Contact , Park Systems (0.000%) Project Contact , AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) UK (0.000%) Project Contact , Arc Instruments (0.000%) Project Contact , Broadex Technologies UK Ltd (0.000%) Project Contact , Cadence Design Systems Ltd (0.000%) Project Contact , Cirrus Logic (UK) (0.000%) Project Contact , Embecosm Ltd. (0.000%) Project Contact , Mind Foundry Ltd (0.000%) Project Contact , Siemens Digital Industries Software - TX (0.000%) Project Contact , Tessolve (0.000%)
Web Site
Objectives
Abstract	Artificial intelligence (AI) is undergoing an era of explosive growth. With increasingly capable AI agents such as chatGPT, AlphaFold, Gato and DALL-E capturing the public imagination, the potential impact of AI on modern society is becoming ever clearer for all to see. APRIL is a project that seeks to bring the benefits of AI to the electronics industry of the UK. Specifically, we aspire developing AI tools for cutting development times for everything from new, fundamental materials for electronic devices to complicated microchip designs and system architectures, leading to faster, cheaper, greener and overall, more power-efficient electronics.Imagine a future where extremely complex and intricate material structures, far more complex than what a human could design alone, are optimised by powerful algorithms (such as an AlphaFold for semiconductor materials). Or consider intelligent machines with domain-specialist knowledge (think of a Gato-like system trained on exactly the right milieu of skills) experimenting day and night with manufacturing techniques to build the perfect electronic components. Or yet what if we had algorithms trained to design circuits by interacting with an engineer in natural language (like a chatGPT with specialist knowledge)? Similar comments could be made about systems that would take care of the most tedious bits of testing and verifying increasingly complex systems such as mobile phone chipsets or aircraft avionics software, or indeed for modelling and simulating electronics (both potentially achievable by using semi-automated AI coders such asGoogle's "PaLM" model). This is precisely the cocktail of technologies that APRIL seeks to develop.In this future, AI - with its capabilities of finding relevant information, performing simple tasks when instructed to do so and its incredible speed - would operate under the supervision of experienced engineers for assisting them in creating electronics suited to an ever-increasing palette of requirements, from low-power systems to chips manufactured to be recyclable to ultra-secure systems for handling the most sensitive and private data. To achieve this, APRIL brings together a large consortium of universities, industry and government bodies, working together to develop: i) the new technologies of the future, ii) the tools that will make these technologies a reality and very importantly, iii) the people with the necessary skills (for building as well as using such new tools) to ensure that the UK remains a capable and technologically advanced player in the global electronics industry.
Publications	(none)
Final Report	(none)
Added to Database	20/03/24