New AI center announced for St. Louis
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By
Chris Teale
The Spirit of St. Louis AI Innovation Center looks to position the city and the surrounding region as a hub for the technology with computing power and other resources.
A new center for artificial intelligence supported by several large tech companies was announced last week in St. Louis, Missouri, in a bid to position the region as a leader on AI technology.
The Spirit of St. Louis Innovation Center will have access to high-performance computing and AI resources, which can be accessed by researchers, governments, startups and others in the industry. The center also has committed to using AI for the public good: 20% of its resources and capacity will be dedicated to civic projects that benefit St. Louis and its surrounding region.
Amazon Web Services, Google, NVIDIA, Overture Maps Foundation, WEKA and World Wide Technology will be founding members for the center, which will be administered by GeoSTL, a local nonprofit geospatial and AI economic development entity.
“The creation of the Spirit of St. Louis AI Innovation Center marks a pivotal moment for our region and the broader tech community,” Mark Munsell, executive director of GeoSTL, said in a statement. “With the combined expertise and resources of these extraordinary partners, we are laying the foundation for a transformative collaborative space that will drive the next generation of AI solutions that benefit humanity.”
Once it is fully operational, the center intends to hold what it calls "The Spirit of St. Louis AI Innovation Competitions," a series of challenges in which academia, nonprofits and businesses will look to use AI and tech to solve some of the area’s biggest challenges. Officials said that could include agriculture technology; advanced manufacturing; bio and health sciences; national security; transportation; and supply chain logistics.
The center takes inspiration from St. Louis’ history of aviation, including Charles Lindbergh’s historic “Spirit of St. Louis” flight, which celebrates its centennial next year.
“As pioneering long-distance aviators, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh relied on maps — the original geospatial databases, to explore our planet,” Erik Lindbergh, chairman of the nonprofit Lindbergh Foundation that is a partner in this effort and others, said in a statement. “The Lindbergh Foundation is proud to be part of the history of ongoing evolution of geospatial information technologies and the future that connects St. Louisans to the many opportunities in this exciting field.”
Regions across the United States have been striving to stand out as leaders on AI, with many looking to do so while investing in local businesses and their workforce. Earlier this year, experts said economic development and encouraging new technologies should move beyond the “incentive wars” where states and localities try to outdo each other on tax breaks and other attempts to woo businesses, often large tech companies.
Meanwhile, a study last year from the Brookings Institution found that there are a number of cities all with the potential to be leaders on AI adoption and use, beyond the usual suspects of Silicon Valley in California; New York City; Austin, Texas; and Washington, D.C. St. Louis could be looking to capitalize on this move away from the traditional technology power centers with this AI center, which officials said “will help advance cutting-edge research, industry application, and workforce development in St. Louis innovation clusters, creating a global ‘digital utility’ that will drive economic growth across the region and beyond.”
The center is expected to formally launch its programming and innovation challenges in the coming months.
“St. Louis has a long history of pioneering the future, and the Spirit of St. Louis AI Innovation Center is no exception,” Ron Kitchens, managing partner of the regional economic development organization Greater St. Louis, Inc., said in a statement. “This groundbreaking partnership will further establish our region as the center for geospatial and artificial intelligence innovation, catalyze economic growth, and attract the nation’s top talent to St. Louis to address humanity’s most pressing challenges. We commend GeoSTL for its leadership and look forward to our continued partnership as the Center expands its programming.”