- Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Although the late British mathematician Alan Turing and Canadian scientist Dr. Jeffrey Hinton are referred to as the godfathers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), D.C.-based brothers Bijan Tadayon, Ph.D. and Saied Tadayon, Ph.D. may truly take the title of AI’s Wright Brothers. 

In other words, like the courageous Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, who taught the world how to fly, the Tadayon brothers are building an AI platform that is the world’s first AGI, Artificial General Intelligence. Much like the human brain, AGI is a form of AI that possesses the ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide range of tasks and domains. 

In honor of their founder and long-time UC Berkeley professor, the late Dr. Lotfi Zadeh, who invented the concept of fuzzy logic, the Tadayon brothers have named their company ZAdvancedComputing or ZAC. Unlike other AI companies, ZAC arrives at a query with far fewer training samples and more accuracy. In fact, in a pilot with Bosch they were able to use their proprietary 3D image recognition algorithms for a more efficient use of dishwashing.

They were able to accomplish this amazing feat on a simple laptop or CPU. In other words, unlike some current AI systems that require Nvidia’s GPU chips and consume massive amounts of electricity, ZAC can perform the same functions with a low carbon footprint. 

Not surprisingly, the U.S. Air Force is working with ZAC to help America stay one step ahead of rivals such as China. It is no exaggeration to say that ZAC’s success means America can stay one step ahead in developing advanced AI systems capable of dominating the global economy.

In fact, unlike Song-Chun Zhu, who collected $30 million in U.S. government grants before leaving UCLA in September 2020 for Beijing, the Tadayon brothers have been loyal to the U.S. A case in point is that as early as 2018, the government of China offered them $30 million to move their company and operations to China. Had they done this, their company would be worth over $10 billion today, but they chose to stay, like true patriots. 

The patriotism of the Tadayon brothers stems from their quintessential story of realizing the American dream. Having escaped the theocratic dictatorship of the ayatollahs in Iran, the Tadayon family moved to the U.S. to start a new life. After fleeing their native Iran, they first settled in Boston but then got a full ride to Cornell University, where they got their PhDs in computer science and electrical engineering.

ZAC’s CTO Saied Tadayon got his Ph.D. at the age of 23, the youngest student in the history of Cornell. These hard-working brothers then decided to get their law degrees from Georgetown University and are accomplished patent attorneys. Today, they lecture at the US Patent Office and are currently working with the MQ9 office of the US Air Force on 3D image recognition. As Bijan Tadayon says: “We are solving the hardest part of AI because ZAC wants to become a pioneer in leveraging AI for humanity.”

Indeed, like the Wright brothers, the Tadayon brothers have a moral compass, and their business ethos is anchored in a religious calling from their native Iran: “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtue.” In other words, unlike much of Silicon Valley, where hype driven by “fake it till you make it” is the norm, these innovative geniuses are building their AI platform based on a financial model centered around capitalism with a conscience.  

Not surprisingly, the Tadayon brothers are driven by empathy, honesty, and real scientific results. Why? Because when doctors start using ZAC’s platform to detect anomalies in pathology, human life is on the line. Or when a farmer in Iowa takes a photo of a skin anomaly and runs it on ZAC’s platform, he can rest assured the result will accurately inform him whether he has skin cancer or not. Beyond the health care sector, ZAC envisions impactful applications for AGI in the areas of education, climate change and global philanthropy. 

In short, ZAC can become the world’s next Google for image recognition. Imagine the economic impact of a Google-type company on the Washington, DC, region. In fact, if one partners a chip company such as Taiwan’s TSMC with ZAC’s software, our region would be home to a potentially trillion-dollar company. Making Washington, DC, the global hub for AGI and chip manufacturing would have a massive economic impact on our region.  

For the Washington, DC region to realize this massive economic opportunity – far bigger than Amazon’s move to northern Virginia – the Pentagon and other funding agencies of the U.S. Government should immediately embrace the work of these modern-day Wright brothers.

Public and private capital should be allocated to ZAC immediately so it accomplishes what the Wright brothers accomplished more than a century ago, namely, an invention that brought the world closer together.  

  • S. Rob Sobhani, Ph.D. is a Board member of ZAC and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University.

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