The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has collaborated with a tech giant to launch a Hybrid Cloud lab to advance research in hybrid cloud technologies and drive breakthrough innovations in the area. Located at the IISc campus in Bengaluru, students, and faculty across departments of the institute will work alongside the company’s research scientists to conduct cutting-edge research that can help organisations leverage the true power of hybrid cloud by enabling the faster and more secure adoption of hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI).
According to a news report, a study on hybrid cloud has revealed that the value derived from a hybrid, multi-cloud platform technology and operating model at scale is 2.5 times the value derived from a single platform, single cloud. Hence, businesses are increasingly investing in hybrid multi-cloud platform capabilities to unlock value and drive business transformation.
The Hybrid Cloud lab will bring together a community of scientists, faculty, and students, to solve research challenges that enterprises face today, in scaling the adoption of cloud computing across industries. The lab will engage not just with academia, but also the broader open-source community for wider adoption and acceleration of innovation. The lab will start with an initial set of projects. They will involve faculty and students from the IISc Departments of Computational and Data Sciences, Computer Science and Automation, and the Supercomputing Education and Research Centre, alongside scientists from the company’s research lab in the country.
The projects include building autonomous, self-healing computing systems that use AI to predict emerging issues, diagnose and heal faults while maximising availability and minimising the cost of operations. Also, adopting microservices and optimisation of cloud-native applications that leverage and advance cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes and serverless. This will enable enterprises to bring substantial agility into their IT services and drive new cloud-enabled business models.
Researchers will create AI-based information management that enables enterprises to govern, consume, draw insights, and create value from data across a hybrid footprint of edge, cloud, and diverse data sources. They will also develop AI systems that can analyse human and machine languages, with advances in AI for code, to model, and optimise computing systems. This will be fundamental to enabling innovations and automation in the above-mentioned areas.
The report noted that the lab will take an open-access approach by jointly presenting the research findings in premier conferences, hosting workshops, and releasing open-source material to the community. It will also give IISc students exposure to industry-driven problem statements and mentorship from IBM researchers on research and open source. The lab will serve as a hub for fostering the exchange of ideas, not just for the members of the two institutions, but for the research and industry community in the region.
According to an official, the two organisations will jointly develop open-source software that provides interoperability, portability, and security that can be easily accessible to the vast community of developers to accelerate innovation. The new lab builds on a 15-year relationship between IBM Research and IISc on knowledge exchange through guest lectures, collaboration in the form of the open science programme, and internship opportunities. Last year, IISc and IBM Research conducted the ACM Winter School on Hybrid Cloud that offered students (at the postgraduate level and above) a deep understanding of the foundations of cloud computing. IBM Research also sponsors a STEM education program at IISc for secondary school students.
