U-M Invests $100 Million in Data Service Initiative
U-M is launching a project to analyze complex data in transportation,medicine, and social science.
The University of Michigan is investing $100 million into a new project to analyze ‘big data.’ Big data refers to the collection of intensely complex and vast information.
Brian Athey is co-director of the ‘Data Science Initiative’. He says new methods of analysis are needed to gain value from ‘big data.’
“This can refer to genetic information in health records in the medical school and public health side, it could refer to climate data that’s collected all around the world. It could include social media data like feeds from the twitter feed or you things that occur on Facebook,” Athey says.
Athey says ‘big data’ also refers to how fast information can be collected and how many different types of information can be analyzed together. The university will hold an all-day symposium next month to showcase the new ‘Data Science Initiative’.
