Science Gateways and AI/ML: How Can Gateway Concepts and Solutions Meet the Needs in Data Science?

Abstract

Science gateways are a crucial component of critical infrastructure as they provide the means for users to focus on their topics and methods instead of the technical details of the infrastructure. They are defined as end-to-end solutions for accessing data, software, computing services, sensors, and equipment specific to the needs of a science or engineering discipline and their goal is to hide the complexity of the underlying infrastructure. Science gateways are often called Virtual Research Environments in Europe and Virtual Labs in Australasia; we consider these two terms to be synonymous with science gateways. Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have found applications in many different fields in private industry, and private industry has reaped the benefits. Likewise, in the academic realm, large-scale data science applications have also learned to apply public high-performance computing resources to make use of this technology. However, academic and research science gateways have yet to fully adopt the tools of AI. There is an opportunity in the gateways space, both to increase the visibility and accessibility to AI/ML applications and to enable researchers and developers to advance the field of science gateway cyberinfrastructure itself. Harnessing AI/ML is recognized as a high priority by the science gateway community. It is, therefore, critical for the next generation of science gateways to adapt to support the AI/ML that is already transforming many scientific fields. The goal is to increase collaborations between the two fields and to ensure that gateway services are used and are valuable to the AI/ML community. This chapter presents state-of-the-art examples and areas of opportunity for the science gateways community to pursue in relation to AI/ML and some vision of where these new capabilities might impact science gateways and support scientific research.