Working at the intersection of three massive trends: powerful machine learning, cloud computing, and crowdsourcing, the AMPLab is creating a new Big Data analytics platform that combines Algorithms, Machines and People to make sense at scale. 

Machine learning (ML) turns data into information and knowledge. While it is useful to view ML as a toolbox that can be deployed for many data-centric problems, our long-term goal is more ambitious—we are developing ML as a full-fledged engineering discipline.

Many claim that the “datacenter is the new computer” but datacenters do not provide the key services one needs for managing and understanding massive data.  We are developing a scalable software platform to make using a datacenter for analytics as easy as using an individual computer today.

People will play a key role in Big Data applications – not simply as passive consumers of results, but as active providers and gatherers of data, and to solve ML-hard problems that algorithms on their own cannot solve.  The AMPLab is building tools that include people as individuals and crowds for all phases of the analytics lifecycle.