Dr. Ashwani Dev on Scaling and Leveraging Global AI Solutions, Using Data to Diagnose Disease: More Intelligent Tomorrow, Episode #17

Dr. Ashwani Dev, Digital and Data Science Officer at Halliburton, recently joined the DataRobot More Intelligent Tomorrow podcast. Dev explained how companies are making sure that AI solutions have a tighter relationship to their entire business and how new oil and gas technologies are applied globally to solve some of the most complex energy challenges. 

Dr. Dev, who lives in Houston, Texas, knows that any good AI advances in his field cannot only be used in his own backyard: 

“First, you need to try it out. Then you need to improve it and increase the scope and the scale and then you want to know—globally—how many countries you are going to do it [in] because once you apply the technology, or you develop an AI solution, or any solution for that matter, we are not satisfied if it only works in North America. It should work in Latin America. It should work in the Middle East, in the desert, in Africa, and in Asia.”

Dr. Dev understands the power of applying new technology globally, but he also preaches about the importance of integrating an AI system in all areas of a business. 

“What we are realizing is we need to connect everything if we need to really leverage AI systems, because making one vertical efficient is not enough to bring value. What we need to do is bring efficiency to the whole lifecycle of exploring or where you’re managing production and all those areas.”

“You have to really think [about] how your organizations are designed, and where your people with functional and business areas [are]—where do they sit? And what is your strategy to bring them together?”

AI May Make Its Biggest Impact in Healthcare 

Dr. Dev’s emotional experience of caring for his late mother in India touched him deeply, both personally and professionally. Not only does he envision better diagnostic abilities for kidney disease, he foresees a potential revolution in the entire healthcare field. 

“That was quite an experience for me. Not only because my mother was sick, but I saw a lot of patients who had kidney problems and—especially in India—how they suffer. One of the things that I realized after my mother passed away: I wanted to study more and understand about acute kidney failures and understand what is out there. Can you identify acute kidney failure? Are there symptoms that can help you identify [it]? Can data point to something which can tell you—like a probabilistic model?”

Dr. Dev has confidence in the influence of AI on healthcare. 

“I think that’s where I personally feel like the biggest impact for AI [will be made]… in improving the quality of life of people.” 

Smart Systems Will Influence Every Industry

Dr. Dev also draws on his family life when he envisions the future of education. He encourages all parents and educators to provide their children with a solid scientific foundation:

“When I imagine that future, I feel like they need to be much closer to the foundation of maths, physics, and basically the sciences, because I think that’s what is driving everything. If you look at all the machine learning applications which are out there—all the robotics applications out there—basically, these are mathematical and engineering systems which are working together.”

Dr. Dev continues, saying, “And on top of it, what I see in [the] future, whether you are going to work in healthcare, agriculture, life sciences, or in other areas, you need to have that consciousness to interact with smart systems. And to interact with smart systems, you need to also …understand how they are built.”

To hear more about the influence of AI on healthcare, oil and gas, and the future of education, check out the More Intelligent Tomorrow podcast at https://www.datarobot.com/ai-heroes/podcasts/ or https://datarobot.buzzsprout.com/. You can also listen everywhere you already enjoy podcasts, including Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google.