William McCormick
Booz Allen Hamilton has invested in Latent AI, an early-stage venture spinout of SRI Ventures that offers a suite of software tools that enable adaptive artificial intelligence and machine learning at the edge in support of defense organizations.
“The National Defense Strategy calls for a more innovative, resilient military to maintain the U.S. competitive advantage, and the ability to collect, analyze and quickly act on data is at the core of that national security mission,” Steve Escaravage, senior vice president at Booz Allen, said in a statement published Monday.
“To fully leverage a force that is interconnected and information-advantaged, defense organizations need optimized, scalable AI and data compression at the tactical edge. Booz Allen’s investment in Latent AI will help enable our clients to implement ML models on small form factor chip-sets and into highly sought-after end-user devices, which will increase AI adoption and return on investment,” added Escaravage.
Booz Allen is one of the largest AI service providers for the federal government. The company provides AI, ML and data architecture technologies through its work with the Joint AI Center, Army Futures Command and U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command.
“This investment enhances the ability of both Latent AI and Booz Allen to meet the evolving needs of clients, particularly in deploying algorithms to the edge to prevail in the future digital battlefield,” stated Brian MacCarthy, Booz Allen vice president and founder of the firm’s Tech Scouting group.
Latent AI’s Efficient Inference Platform is a modular, fully-integrated edge AI development platform designed to enhance the compute, energy consumption and memory allocation of tactical edge devices. It does its work without requiring changes to prior model infrastructures or edge system designs.
The platform also enables rapid, highly scalable and adaptable AI application development at the tactical edge regardless of framework, operating system, architecture or hardware.
“We founded Latent AI because we saw an opportunity to help developers and organizations transition more efficiently to the edge and we have only scratched the surface of what is possible,” said Jags Kandasamy, Latent AI co-founder and CEO.
“Both Latent AI and Booz Allen are dedicated to helping organizations achieve significantly more with their AI systems, and we are excited to have Booz Allen as an investor and partner as we pave the path forward to a smarter edge,” concluded Kandasamy.
