More than 75% work of Qingluan Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Pakistan’s first-ever AI lab, at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has been completed while almost 100% of the equipment installation is completely done.
“The equipment installation is almost 100% finished. Research, development, and customization are currently underway. I would say work is almost finished to 75%.” Muhammad Khubaib Shabbir, Deputy Director of the China Study Center of NUST told the local news agency.
The laboratory was founded at the beginning of the current year and is being constructed under the banner of CPEC with joint efforts of NUST and Guangzhou Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Presently it is in full use of both students and teaching staff who are keen on researching Facial Recognition and Pattern algorithms
“Currently, Cogniser-V1 intelligent video analysis project-a pilot project with the Government of Pakistan, and a commercial project, namely GymBot, are the main projects that are under development.” Muhammad Khubaib Shabbir told.
About Cognzer-V1 and GymBot
According to Mr. Shabbir, Cognizer-V1 is one of the most refined surveillance equipment which has the capacity to sense the people who are lurking around in certain areas and generate warnings, regarding dangerous behavioral patterns such as suicide, or other suspicious activities using AI and Computer Vision Algorithms. While, GymBot, an ideal example of science commercialization, is an auxiliary tool designed to be a deep learning device used in various gym scenarios i.e. monitoring whether the clients’ postures are correct.
“It is important to keep in mind that Guangzhou Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences has shared the source code for ‘GymBot’. This enabled the researchers from Pakistan to get first-hand experience of the latest results on AI developments and offered them a chance to learn from it, enhance it and make it more usable for the local community. This will most definitely open new doors of opportunities for Pakistanis.” Khubaib Shabbir said.
Moving ideas from lab to market is a complex journey. Researchers and concerned authorities need to manage the time-consuming process of moving from academic to commercial contexts and search for a balance between various goals amongst stakeholders and researchers.