Intellegens, a new company spun out of the University of Cambridge to develop and commercialise novel artificial intelligence (AI) software, has received funding from Cambridge Enterprise and local angel investor Graham Snudden.
The spin-out has developed proprietary algorithms which allow neural networks to be trained on a fragmented or incomplete database. The technique, developed in the Department of Physics, has been applied to drug discovery and material design but as the technique is generic it can be applied to many domains where there is big, incomplete data.
Intellegens has already successfully deployed its code in two diverse applications: drug discovery and material design. The software can help to cut customers’ costs by reducing the number of experiments thereby shortening development cycles and offering accelerated time-to-market.
The company was founded by Dr Gareth Conduit, a Royal Society Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory, and Ben Pellegrini, an expert in big data and cloud-based platforms. The Intellegens approach can be applied to many other data domains. Current opportunities include health, autonomous cars and retail. To enable wider uptake of this approach, Intellegens is developing an online portal with additional funding from Innovate UK.
Dr Gareth Conduit, CTO and co-founder of Intellegens, commented: ‘This new approach to applying AI to incomplete databases enables us to analyse significantly more data than traditional AI approaches and to develop models that would otherwise be impossible. The approach is particularly relevant to experimental data where we can combine a small number of well-characterised records—typically created empirically at significant expense—with big fragmented databases, enabling us to infer high-value information. Having gained commercial validation with research partners in fields as diverse as, aero engines, semiconductor and battery technology and oil and gas, we’re very excited about the broad range of commercial opportunities available.’
Elaine Loukes, investment manager at Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds, said: ‘The Intellegens approach has already delivered impressive results, and we believe that it could provide compelling benefits in many other AI applications’.
