Recommendations For Leveraging Cloud Computing Resources For Federally Funded Artificial Intelligence Research and Development

Cloud platforms provide on-demand, elastic, and self-serve access to resources at scale and are thus capable of supporting large-scale and/or big data computing. They provide access to contemporary hardware and advanced software stacks, with users “riding the technology curve” as new technologies are made available in the cloud. The on-demand nature of access to resources can provide a “fast path” to computing—acquiring cloud resources is much faster than buying, installing, and operating on-premise, localized hardware [e.g., on many university campuses]. Cloud platforms can also support important new modalities of data, such as streaming data and real-time analytics on such data. … Researchers and educators can leverage modern cloud platforms to accelerate and improve their research and teaching, instead of building and deploying dedicated local infrastructure.