DARPA Pours $3M in Python Big Data Project

Continuum Analytics, a developer of Python-based data analytics solutions and services, recently said that it has received about $3 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to support big data research.

The company said that it will be developing "NumPy, SciPy and visualization techniques for the interactive exploration of large, multi-dimensional data sets".

According to the company, the development effort is separated in a Python computing library called Blaze and the visualization system Bokeh. DARPA provided the funding within the framework of its XDATA program, which was created to promote the creation of new open-source software tools to process and analyze big data with a focus on "mission-oriented information for Defense activities" and especially on "scalable algorithms for processing and visualization of imperfect and incomplete data."

DARPA said that it hopes that XDATA will result in "human-computer interaction tools that could be easily customized for different missions."

“XDATA is a cornerstone of the government’s Big Data initiative, and we are excited to be a part of bringing open-source tools to the defense industry,” said Peter Wang, President at Continuum Analytics. “The tools we develop through this project will give DARPA a solid foundation for continued innovation in the rapid analysis and visual exploration of massive, interconnected data from heterogeneous sources."

Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources.

See here for all of Wolfgang's Tom's IT Pro articles.

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