AI agents are now helping operate the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, where researchers are searching radio signals for possible signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. The system can steer the telescope and analyze incoming data as it arrives, although researchers still enter commands themselves.
The SETI Institute and Breakthrough Listen use Nvidia’s Holoscan platform to process telescope data in Real Time. Nvidia says the hardware can handle up to 2.4 terabits per second. According to the research team, analyses that once took weeks can now be completed in hours.
The team reports that the system detected a pulsar in the Crab Nebula in real time, which it describes as a first. Pulsars are rapidly rotating stellar remnants that produce regular signals, making them useful for testing signal-detection methods.
Researchers plan to test open-source systems that can run locally on edge hardware, with potential future use for sensors on the far side of the Moon. The AI-assisted search has not yet produced a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence. SETI researchers have been looking for such signals since the first experiment in 1960.
Sources: The Decoder.