Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a disruptive force globally. The applications of AI to different industries and sectors are broad and growing. But successfully putting AI into action requires a fundamental rethinking of the business. Working towards the goal to provide industries with real-time insights is SparkCognition.

SparkCognition is an AI company that offers business-critical solutions for customers in energy, oil and gas, manufacturing, finance, aerospace, defense, and security industries. The company offers AI-powered enterprise software through three platforms namely DeepArmor, SparkPredict, and DeepNLP, to optimize and secure critical infrastructure. SparkCognition's technologies can predict and prescribe asset health by conceptualizing data and automating human capabilities.

SparkCognition, a true AI innovator, has developed cutting-edge machine learning technology that models physical and virtual assets, and can continuously learn from data to derive automated, intelligent insights.

SparkCognition's technology is capable of harnessing real-time infrastructure data and learning from it continuously, allowing for more accurate risk mitigation and prevention policies to intervene and avert disasters. Likewise, the company's cybersecurity centered solution analyzes structured and unstructured data to identify potential attacks in the IoT environment.

The Leader of SparkCognition

Amir Husain is the Founder and CEO of SparkCognition, an award-winning AI company. He is an undisputed tech leader in Austin, Texas (US) and in the industry at large. He has been awarded 23 U.S. patents and has over 40 pending patent applications and leads SparkCognition's initiatives, which are tremendously advancing the "AI 3.0" revolution. Amir Husain is a serial entrepreneur, inventor, and author who has been recognized as Austin's Top Technology Entrepreneur of the Year, and was awarded the 2016 Austin Under 40 Technology and Science Award.

Since its launch in April 2014, SparkCognition has received widespread recognition, including making to the top 20 listing on the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50, being named the fastest-growing company in Central Texas by Austin Business Journal in 2017, and ranking on the CB Insights AI 100 list in both 2017 and 2018.

Amir's work has been published in leading tech journals including Network World, Computer World, and many others. His book "The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence" was released in 2017. The book features complex computer science and AI concepts in a clear, plainspoken language and draws from a wide variety of cultural and historical references to illustrate his points. Husain has served as a founding member of the Board of Advisors for IBM Watson and currently serves on the Board of Advisors for The University of Texas at Austin Department of Computer Science.

The Vision and Mission

SparkCognition was founded with the desire to be at the forefront of the "AI 3.0" revolution and make significant advancements in the "AI century" Amir refers we now live in.

It began when Amir was four and saw a Commodore 64 running the game, "Hangman". This ignited a passion within him that has lasted a lifetime. Being able to code and drive positive change in the world is at the heart of what captivates him; a mission he has pursued with vigor throughout his journey so far.

Initially, SparkCognition's focus was applying AI to the energy and industrial markets, but after a few years of deploying their technologies in those spaces, the company found that AI could solve many of the maintenance, optimization, and security challenges companies in multiple industries are facing. From there, the team used patented technology to develop products that addressed those critical challenges. Recently, in the last year or so, the company also expanded into the finance vertical as well as the national security and defense sector.

Dealing with Challenges

Commenting on the tough times Amir says "As with any company growing as fast as we are, there are always growing pains around talent acquisition and keeping up with customer demand. However, these are the fun challenges that come with building something meaningful and sustainable".

Awards, Achievement, and Recognition

Recently, SparkCognition was recognized as one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America" by Entrepreneur magazine's 2017 Entrepreneur 360™ List and named in the 2017 Red Herring Top 100 Global.

Future Take

"There has been a tremendous skills shortage when it comes to maintaining and running the physical infrastructure that powers daily life and commerce in the country," says Amir. "This is the century where significant industry advancements will be made and artificial intelligence will lead those initiatives. The industry has now made significant progress in Artificial Narrow Intelligence, meaning machines are using big data to become experts at specific tasks and now, in certain areas, Artificial Intelligence can outperform humans. Systems will begin to take autonomous actions and we will move even closer toward achieving Artificial General Intelligence."

"Artificial Intelligence will begin to move from perception to action. This will be a long road, of course, but this process of trusting Artificial Intelligence with autonomous action is irreversible in my view."