Pittsburgh: The Birthplace of AI

Pittsburgh is shaping the future of what’s next in artificial intelligence (AI): software, hardware, robotics, and machine learning. AI began in Pittsburgh, with Carnegie Mellon as a trailblazer since the 1950s — in fact,  esteemed faculty members, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell, invented the field of AI during their tenure. Today, the Pittsburgh area is a leader in artificial intelligence smart cities, developing new technologies and initiatives. 

Artificial intelligence has numerous benefits from urbanization to creating sustainable cities to everyday life. However, AI is more than your smartphone’s facial recognition, mobile apps or virtual assistant. Since AI is essentially a collection of programmed algorithms, it can be applied across nearly every industry from the development of autonomous vehicles to IT data analytics. 

For example, one use case would be in the medical field, where AI platforms can help to better manage healthcare systems. The use of AI systems and machine learning might even allow for robotic assistance in surgery, as robots can exceed human accuracy on many different surgical tasks. 

What Are the Benefits of AI in Smart Cities? 

AI technology is a critical piece of smart city development. While Pittsburgh is known as the “Steel City,” it is also a smart city. What is a smart city? It’s an area that uses a variety of methods, including AI, for data collection and automation of administrative tasks. This data is in turn used for city planning, urban environment improvement, and optimization. 

Artificial intelligence is also often used to sort through large amounts of “big data” in many industries, including real-world AI applications in the public sector. The implementation of AI with IoT systems (Internet of Things) can help urban areas and municipalities gain insights and use forecasting to make more informed decisions. These learnings of artificial intelligence smart cities could be what their citizens need, like tracking energy usage to improve the allocation of renewable energy sources. Or it can help commuters deal with less traffic congestion. 

Using historical and real-time datasets, artificial intelligence smart cities and their city planners can use cost-effective management systems to help improve city initiatives like safety, sustainability, decision-making, and quality of life. AI services and smart city applications can improve nearly every aspect of a metropolis, including: 

• Access to public services 
• Climate change 
• Energy-efficiency 
• Public safety 
• Public transportation 
• Traffic management 
• Urban planning 
• Waste management 

In the Pittsburgh region, we’re the home of top AI companies, talent, and graduates. The application of AI and AI research isn’t just for our own stakeholders and data scientists. AI developments lead to economic growth and help to improve businesses, metro areas, and quality of life all over the world.