Google Cloud launches Vertex AI, making machine learning more accessible, useful for businesses

Breakthrough managed ML platform empowers companies to more quickly and easily manage models, allowing them to keep pace with dynamic business needs

At Google I/O, Google Cloud has announced the general availability of Vertex AI, a managed machine learning (ML) platform that allows companies to accelerate the deployment and maintenance of artificial intelligence (AI) models. Vertex AI requires nearly 80% fewer lines of code to train a model versus competitive platforms, enabling data scientists and ML engineers across all levels of expertise the ability to implement Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) to efficiently build and manage ML projects throughout the entire development lifecycle. Machine Learning Operations Lifecycle

Today, data scientists grapple with the challenge of manually piecing together ML point solutions, creating a lag time in model development and experimentation, resulting in very few models making it into production. To tackle these challenges, Vertex AI brings together the Google Cloud services for building ML under one unified UI and API, to simplify the process of building, training, and deploying machine learning models at scale. In this single environment, customers can move models from experimentation to production faster, more efficiently discover patterns and anomalies, make better predictions and decisions, and generally be more agile in the face of shifting market dynamics.

Through decades of innovation and strategic investment in AI at Google, the company has learned important lessons on how to build, deploy, and maintain ML models in production. Those insights and engineering have been baked into the foundation and design of Vertex AI and will be continuously enriched by the innovation coming out of Google Research. Now, for the first time, with Vertex AI, data science and ML engineering teams can:

  • Access the AI toolkit used internally to power Google that includes computer vision, language, conversation, and structured data, continuously enhanced by Google Research.
  • Deploy more, useful AI applications, faster with new MLOps features like Vertex Vizier, which increases the rate of experimentation, the fully managed Vertex Feature Store to help practitioners serve, share, and reuse ML features, and Vertex Experiments to accelerate the deployment of models into production with faster model selection.
  • Manage models with confidence by removing the complexity of self-service model maintenance and repeatability with MLOps tools like Vertex Continuous Monitoring and Vertex Pipelines to streamline the end-to-end ML workflow.

"We had two guiding lights while building Vertex AI: get data scientists and engineers out of the orchestration weeds, and create an industry-wide shift that would make everyone get serious about moving AI out of pilot purgatory and into full-scale production," said Andrew Moore, vice president and general manager of Cloud AI and Industry Solutions at Google Cloud. "We are very proud of what we came up with within this platform, as it enables serious deployments for a new generation of AI that will empower data scientists and engineers to do fulfilling and creative work."

"Data science practitioners hoping to put AI to work across the enterprise aren't looking to wrangle tooling. Rather, they want tooling that can tame the ML lifecycle. Unfortunately, that is no small order," said Bradley Shimmin, chief analyst for AI Platforms, Analytics, and Data Management at Omdia. "It takes a supportive infrastructure capable of unifying the user experience, plying AI itself as a supportive guide, and putting data at the very heart of the process -- all while encouraging the flexible adoption of diverse technologies."

ModiFace uses Vertex AI to revolutionize the beauty industry

ModiFace, a part of L'Oréal, is a global market leader in augmented reality and artificial intelligence for the beauty industry. ModiFace creates new services for consumers to try beauty products such as hair color, makeup, and nail color, virtually in real-time. ModiFace is using Vertex AI platform to train its AI models for all of its new services. For example, ModiFace's skin diagnostic is trained on thousands of images from L'Oréal's Research & Innovation, the company's dedicated research arm. Bringing together L'Oréal's scientific research combined with ModiFace's AI algorithm, this service allows people to obtain a highly precise tailor-made skincare routine.

"We provide an immersive and personalized experience for people to purchase with confidence whether it's a virtual try-on at web check out, or helping to understand what brand product is right for each individual," said Jeff Houghton, chief operating officer at ModiFace, part of L'Oréal. "With more and more of our users looking for information at home, on their phone, or at any other touchpoint, Vertex AI allowed us to create technology that is incredibly close to actually trying the product in real life."

Essence is built for the algorithmic age with help of Vertex AI

Essence, a global data and measurement-driven media agency that is part of WPP, is extending the value of AI models made by its data scientists by integrating their workflows with developers using Vertex AI. Historically, AI models created by data scientists remain unchanged once created, but this way of operating has evolved with the digital world as human behaviors and channel content is constantly changing. With Vertex AI, developers and data analysts can update models regularly to meet these fast-changing business needs.

"At Essence, we are measured by our ability to keep pace with our clients' rapidly evolving needs," said Mark Bulling, SVP, Product Innovation at Essence. "Vertex AI gives our data scientists the ability to quickly create new models based on the change in the environment while also letting our developers and data analysts maintain models to scale and innovate. The MLOps capabilities in Vertex AI mean we can stay ahead of our client's expectations."

Availability 
The Vertex AI platform is generally available today. For more information on how to deploy and specific technical information on how Vertex AI accelerates ML experimentation and deployment, please read this blog.

OnScale introduces cloud engineering simulation platform

OnScale today announced the release of the OnScale Solve, the web-based cloud engineering simulation platform bringing to engineers powerful multi-physics solvers and scalable cloud supercomputer resources.

“OnScale Solve gives engineers, designers, and analysts access to the powerful cloud-native engineering simulation tools and cloud supercomputer resources they need to innovate, solve complex problems, and efficiently work from any location and device,” says Ian Campbell, CEO of OnScale. “OnScale Solve is the culmination of our focus on delivering the best-streamlined simulation workflows, powerful multiphysics solvers, and an extensible simulation API, all accessible from a web browser on a pay-as-you-simulate SaaS subscription model.”

OnScale Solve is a SaaS engineering simulation platform that combines powerful multi-physics solvers with massively scalable cloud supercomputers from AWS and Google Cloud. OnScale Solve does not require any installation and can be accessed via a secure web-based connection to any web browser. OnScale Solve features fast multiphysics solvers, automation of time-consuming tasks such as CAD repair and meshing, scalable cloud supercomputer infrastructure, intuitive UI/UX, and integrated workflows, insightful results, and integration with Jupyter notebooks and Cloud AI tools. OnScale Solve overcomes the limitations imposed by legacy FEA desktop simulation tools, enabling engineers to run large simulations and parametric sweeps while enjoying a flexible and fair pay-as-you-simulate subscription model. OnScale Solve 1 c0356{module INSIDE STORY}

Built by Engineers for the Engineers of the Future
OnScale Solve offers a Free Private account loaded with 500 core-hours per year of simulation power. STEM educators and students can benefit from the free online simulation capabilities available in OnScale Solve, while professional users can enjoy running complex simulations and explore massive design spaces to get a glimpse of how cloud engineering simulation can enable the accurate design of modern products. With this release users can perform mechanical, thermal, coupled thermal-mechanical, analysis. The OnScale Solve roadmap includes the development of dynamic mechanical, nonlinear mechanics, thermal-fluid, FSI, and acoustic analysis.

World-Class Cloud CAD Integration
To accelerate and modernize R&D cycles, OnScale Solve integrates directly with Onshape, the world’s first cloud product development platform that unites CAD, product lifecycle management, and collaboration tools. Onshape parametric CAD models can be directly imported into OnScale Solve through the OnScale Connector App, which means that Onshape CAD models are directly made available in OnScale and ready for simulation in the cloud.

Getting Started with OnScale Solve
Engineers, designers, analysts, and current OnScale users can learn more about OnScale Solve and run their first cloud engineering simulation study by accessing these resources:

  • Register for a Free Private Account loaded with 500 core-hours/year at onscale.com/solve and run your simulations directly from Google Chrome.
  • Browse the OnScale Solve release highlights at onscale.com/solve/release.
  • Watch a quick guided video tour of the software, from log in to simulation.
  • Run your first simulation by following a 10-minute online simulation tutorial.
  • Ask for technical support by emailing support@onscale.com.
  • Watch the Introducing OnScale Solve webinar to be held on October 28th, 2020.
  • Onshape users can find our connected cloud app in the Onshape App Store.

OnScale Solve expands OnScale’s product line, which includes OnScale Enterprise, a leading hybrid private/public cloud simulation software used for advanced and computational demanding multiphysics simulations for market-leading high-tech enterprises around the world.

Germans bring remote sensing data into the cloud for a tool used by farmers

Germany is getting a lot of rain in these days of March. Farmers, who want to cultivate their fields are therefore faced with an important question: How wet is it in the fields? Can they be driven over with heavy equipment or is it better to wait and see?

In this case, it would be ideal to send a drone with special sensors across the field. And to quickly generate maps from the data obtained, which the farmer can then use on his cell phone or laptop to assess the soil moisture on his fields on a small scale.

This is just one of the scenarios that the new AgriSens research network is working on. Together with farmers, the scientists involved have defined various applications in which digital technologies would be helpful. These include planning irrigation or making harvest forecasts using satellite data.

The starting signal for the network was given by the German Minister of Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, on March 9, 2020, in Berlin: She presented the funding decisions to the project managers. This is because the ministry is supporting AgriSens with 3.7 million euros over the next three years.

Processing and managing huge amounts of data Image of an agricultural landscape in northern Germany from February 2020, generated from satellite data. Winter wheat grows in the fields: the more intensive the greenery, the more vital the plants are.{module INSIDE STORY}

165,000 euros of this will go to the Remote Sensing Department of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany. Here, Dr. Christian Hüttich is the project manager: "We are working towards exploiting the full potential of the huge amounts of data coming from Earth observation satellites. We want to create an infrastructure with which these data can be processed as quickly as possible so that they can be used by farmers".

Some satellites send data to earth once a week, others even daily. It is important to steer this flood of information into the right orbit and combine it with data collected on the ground. Structure and system must be brought into this process. In doing so, the JMU team is also breaking new ground: "For the first time, we want to bring the remote sensing data into a cloud in which it is also available to all other project participants", explains Hüttich.

Research and agriculture: The partners in the network

The research association "AgriSens DEMMIN 4.0 (Remote Sensing Technologies for Digitisation in Crop Production)" is coordinated by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. Other participants are the German Aerospace Center DLR at the locations Neustrelitz, Oberpfaffenhofen and Jena, Julius Kühn Institute Braunschweig, German Weather Service, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and the University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg.

Also on board are farms from the Demmin area in the region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and other partner farms in Germany. In Demmin, GFZ and DLR maintain experimental fields where they develop and test new technologies together with farmers.

Creating low-threshold services for farmers

Dr. Daniel Spengler coordinates the AgriSens project at GFZ Potsdam: "Remote sensing data provide rich data treasures that can give farmers important information as a basis for decisions on measures such as fertilisation, sowing or soil cultivation. At present, the hurdle to use these data is unfortunately far too high for many farmers. This applies above all to access to the data, its use in a wide range of software solutions and confusing market offerings. We would like to offer low-threshold solutions here."