What is MARS?

MARS is a UK Centre for research and teaching in mathematics underpinning applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to real-world systems. MARS will:

• Transform research at the intersection of dynamical systems modelling and machine learning to deepen understanding of the mathematics underpinning AI.
• Combine AI with applied mathematics to enhance its reliability, trustworthiness, and effectiveness for tackling hard problems in four key application areas.
• Become a regional, national and global leader in next-generation mathematics fostering innovation through academic, industrial, and government partnerships.
• Address the major skills gap in foundational mathematics for real-world modelling by creating new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

What is AI?

AI is a set of powerful contemporary data technologies that are revolutionising our approach to many long-standing hard problems. Some of these problems are traditionally in the realm of human cognition (such as image and language processing), but many are scientific problems out of the range of human abilities (such as predicting molecular structure, virus evolution or cyber threat propagation).

AI creates significant opportunities for mathematical innovation. To model real-world systems, applied mathematics has traditionally solved systems of equations that encode the laws of nature uncovered by science. Today, this approach can be combined with AI methods, taking advantage of large data sets where explicit ‘laws of nature’ may not be known.