Giovanni Montana, Professor of Data Science at WMG, has been awarded a Turing AI Acceleration Fellowship.

Professor Giovanni Montana’s project, Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning for Sequential Decision Making in Real-World Applications, aims to make advances in Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), an area of machine learning which teaches artificial decision makers such as robots and software agents how to interact with the world in order to achieve a desired goal. By allowing autonomous systems to learn a wide range of skills without human intervention, DRL will allow them to be effective in various applications, such as industrial assembly lines and warehouse management systems, driverless cars and in decision making for the most appropriate form of medical treatment for patients.

 Giovanni comments “I am thrilled to have been awarded such a prestigious fellowship that will support an exciting research programme in AI over the next 5 years. The project will aim at developing systems of artificial decision-makers that interact with the real world and autonomously develop collaborative strategies. For instance, in advanced manufacturing, we’ll develop self-coordinating robots in assembly lines that can carry out many different tasks and adapt to changing environments. In digital healthcare, we’ll leverage large volumes of historical NHS data to create an artificial team of specialised clinical experts that can reason under uncertainty and make joint decisions about patient care.”

Science Minister, Amanda Solloway said: “The UK is the birthplace of artificial intelligence and we have a duty to arm the next generation of Alan Turings with the tools that will keep the UK at the forefront of this remarkable technological innovation. The inspirational fellows we are backing today will use AI to tackle some of our greatest challenges head on, transforming how people live, work and communicate, cementing the UK’s status as a world leader in AI and data.”

Digital Minister, Caroline Dineange, said: "The UK is a nation of innovators and this government investment will help our talented academics use cutting-edge technology to improve people's daily lives - from delivering better disease diagnosis to managing our energy needs." 

EPSRC Executive Chair Professor Dame Lynn Gladden said: “The Turing AI Acceleration Fellowships will support some of our leading researchers to progress their careers and develop ground-breaking AI technologies with societal impact. By enhancing collaboration between academia and industry and accelerating these transformative technologies these Fellowships will help to maintain and build on the UK’s position as a world leader in AI.”

Three WMG Professors have now joined the The Alan Turing Institute as Fellows.

Our Professor of Cyber Systems Engineering Carsten Maple, Professor of Data Science, Giovanni Montana, and Professor of Marketing and Service Systems Irene Ng; are now all part of the prestigious line-up of expert Fellows.

The Alan Turing Institute is a national body championing data science and artificial intelligence research. It was created by five founding universities - Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, UCL and the University of Warwick plus the EPSRC, with a further eight new universities – Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Queen Mary University of London, Birmingham, Exeter, Bristol, and Southampton – joining in 2018.

WMG, at the University of Warwick, is investing in data driven innovations with a new Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence. The Centre will enable industry and business to leverage large volumes of digital information to gain competitive insights through Artificial Intelligence methods.

This new centre brings together several applied areas of activity where WMG has an established track record of excellence. It will support the continued expansion of existing research groups in response to the ever-changing landscape of UK industrial needs. Two new appointees, Professor Giovanni Montana and Professor Mehrdad Dianati, will spearhead the Centre working closely with other academic colleagues in Intelligent Vehicles, WMG Cyber Security Centre and the Institute of Digital Healthcare.