C3.ai wins contract to provide AI application for aircraft readiness

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a $95m five-year contract via its Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to artificial intelligence (AI) software provider C3.ai to deliver an application to improve aircraft readiness.

The AI-based C3 Readiness for Aircraft software application predicts repair requirements for military aircraft and prepares them for missions.

It operates on the C3 AI Suite and uses machine learning algorithms for monitoring high-priority subsystems to predict the requirements for parts at air bases and depots.

The C3 AI Suite is an integrated software platform that organisations can use to design, develop, and deploy enterprise-scale AI applications on any public or private Cloud environment.

The DoD can use the AI suite to integrate and unify bulk fragmented and disparate data. Machine learning algorithms will make use of the data for insights that improve operations and provide situational awareness.

C3 Readiness for Aircraft provides a near real-time view of aircraft health for each tail number and enables the availability of maintainers while preparing them for work.

Furthermore, operations personnel can use the application to ensure that the correct parts are available at the right time and at the right locations.

C3.ai president and CTO Ed Abbo said: “Each hour an aircraft is grounded costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, and approximately $292bn of the Pentagon’s annual budget is spent on operations and maintenance costs.

“Given these numbers, even a fractional increase in aircraft mission capability can save billions. We look forward to building on our initial success delivering solutions that extend the DoD’s competitive advantage and support its ambitious plans to implement artificial intelligence at scale.”

C3 Readiness for Aircraft allows organisations to expand the use of existing aircraft and reduces the cost and time associated with unexpected maintenance.

Last October, Microsoft secured a $10bn Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract to provide Cloud services to the DoD.