Te Ipu o Te Mahara | Artificial Intelligence Institute

Launched in April 2021, Te Ipu o te Mahara, The Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of Waikato takes an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to the development of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) research. Our goal is to build awareness and expertise across disciplines so we can better leverage AI for the benefit of our communities.

As a team we are focused on real-time analytics for big data, machine learning and deep learning and have created some of the world's most popular open source tools for machine learning.

WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) is one of the oldest available machine learning systems available, having started development in 1993, and it is still very active in the machine learning / data mining / AI space. WEKA has been downloaded more than 10,000,000 times and has also been cited in more than 18,000 research and applied data science publications.

Our expertise

Machine learning

Machine learning serves an important role in artificial intelligence (AI) by giving software the ability to learn from observations, adapt behaviour and provide predictions and other useful insights to users.

We are working side-by-side with industry on a range of machine learning projects so that more New Zealanders can reap the benefits.

Deep Learning

Deep learning is a specific type of machine learning whereby artificial neural networks learn from complex data such as images, video, and audio. Neural networks can be very powerful but are energy intensive due to the computational requirements.

We are currently focused on three particular problems in deep learning research and applications: user-friendly deep learning, explainability of deep learning, and accurate quantification of predictive uncertainty. We are also working on continual deep learning, which is closely related to our work on real-time analytics.

Real-time analytics

Real-time analytics for big data provides users with timely insights so they can respond without delay. It requires a step-change in computational performance but has huge potential to both transform existing businesses and create opportunities for new businesses to evolve. Continual learning is the next step, where learning is retained.

Open source software

A key focus of the Artificial Intelligence Institute is developing and maintaining open source software to support research, innovation and the application of AI through fast, reliable and secure development tools.

Open source software reduces training costs and provides access to publicly available frameworks, workflows, data sets and models, alongside a community providing monitoring and security.