Swarm Intelligence

Fish detect ripples in the water. Birds use motion detected through the flock. Ants leverage chemical traces. If elements of nature can work together, we humans can also leverage this collaborative model to develop better solutions. This simple concept, when combined with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence results into a system called ‘swarm intelligence’, an emerging field of biologically-inspired artificial intelligence based on the behavioural models of social insects such as ants, bees, wasps, termites etc.

As per Redfield Herald report, Swarm Intelligence market is growing at an average annual growth rate of 11.01%, reaching the size of around 34.2 bn USD last year, which is expected to cross 85 bn USD 2022.

A number of companies around the world are already exploring this technology. There’s Enswarm, a UK start-up that is using swarm technologies to assist with recruitment and employment decisions. WhileSwarm.fund, is combining this technology with crypto-currencies like Bitcoin to develop a new fundraising model.

Multiple space agencies are also exploring this technology. For example, the European Space Agency is working on orbital swarm for self-assembly and interferometry. Similarly, NASA is investigating the use of swarm technology for planetary mapping. It also plans on deploying swarms of tiny spacecraft for space exploration.

This AI-powered predictive technology has found applications in diagnosing medical conditions as well. The medical community is looking into using swarms of nanobots for precision delivery of drugs, microsurgery, targeting toxins, and biological sensors. For example, Stanford University doctors partnered with US-based firm Unanimous AI for diagnosing pneumonia. The Swarm AI system was 33 per cent more accurate at correctly classifying patients than individual practitioners, and 22 per cent more accurate than a Stanford machine-learning program called CheXNet.

Back home in India, Mangaluru-based robotics start-up Vanora Robots has developed home automation product using ‘swarm intelligence’ tech. The start-up has designed a switch – ‘Hunch’ – that uses ‘swarm intelligence’ technology to learn the behaviour of multiple users and to differentiate between them. For example, when a person switches off the lights and fans in a school for three days, Hunch learns the routine. The next day when the person switches off the third switch, it asks if the remaining lights need to be switched off as well.

Looking at a wide range of potential applications of this novel technology, we believe that it is a matter of time that this technology gains a foothold in the financial sector as well. 

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This article has been published in Bank of Baroda's FinTech Newsletter "FinTalk"

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