NOAA’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy

Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques have proved particularly useful in infusing a high level of efficiency and increased performance in a number of scientific areas, including : medicine, autonomous vehicles, biology, agriculture, etc. These AI tools have also demonstrated their effectiveness recently in the environmental sciences, as expressed in the increasing number of publications, conferences and workshops—including those hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—and in the longstanding annual conference on AI for Environmental Science of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). As a result of the significant increase in demonstrated societal benefits of AI, a government-wide effort is under way to ensure AI implementation is coordinated and leveraged across various agencies. In this context, NOAA has drafted its first AI Strategy, which includes five goals, to take full advantage of this fast-developing technology. NOAA is also actively working on the corresponding AI Implementation Plan. The strategy and implementation plans cover a number of NOAA mission-wide objectives and high-level priorities, and are envisioned to gradually complement, modernize, enhance, and in some cases revolutionize NOAA systems in the near to long-term future. The vision of the NOAA AI Strategy is to transform how earth science is conducted by integrating AI into every mission area of NOAA, while the overarching goal is to utilize AI to advance NOAA’s requirements-driven mission priorities. Through this strategy, NOAA seeks to increase efficiency and reduce the cost of data processing, and provide higher quality and more timely scientific products and services.

In this presentation, we will convey what the specific focus areas will be in this first NOAA strategy, along with their associated objectives. This will be done to keep the wider community aware of NOAA’s plans, but also to seek feedback and input from the wider community in order to ensure a coherent and well-thought out implementation plan.