EIAI - Automation in Software Production

Problem being solved

Shortage of programmers, high cost and long duration of large-scale software projects, poor flexibility, modifiability and extendibility of large software systems: all this have an immense cost to the society. Existing software development methods critically rely on 1960ies programming language technology, and do not sufficiently strongly support the development of very large software systems.

Software, the most basic forms of it in particular, is still manually handcrafted even when its complexity is not high enough to really justify the high cost of using human workforce to produce it. There is an ever-increasing need to automate all this work.

The EIAI project is based on ground-breaking new A.I. technologies that will make large software systems more intelligent, more flexible, and far less expensive to produce.

Goals

The technology developed in the project achieves a very high degree of automation in the production of complex large-scale software systems, primarily in the information systems category.

Results

The project has developed a software synthesis method that covers all main parts of software development for knowledge-intensive information systems, including database management, internal control logic, and user interfaces. The method is efficient and highly scalable, and hence applicable to systems of very large size. This is in strong contrast to traditional software synthesis methods investigated in academic research, which are limited to small programs only, with no or very limited relevance to real-world software production.

The technology has been implemented in a proof-of-concept prototype, which will be developed further to a production-quality system during the TEKES-funded part of the project in 2018. During this phase, the technology will be evaluated in terms of the two main objectives, the reduction in effort and cost of producing software systems, and the quality of the resulting systems in terms of usability, correctness, and performance. Commercialization of the technology will follow starting in late 2018. Technology is currently proprietary, with key IP elements being patented.

Project

The project is currently funded by the Technology Development Center of Finland (TEKES) under the TUTL program.

Staff

TEKES funding for 2018 is for a team of computer science and A.I. researchers and a business developer.

Outlook

After the R&D and business development phase in 2018, the project will continue as a start-up company commercializing the technology starting in 2019.

Contact

The project is looking for academic and industrial partners. Please contact Dr Jussi Rintanen.

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