R&D, or Research and Development, refers to all systematic and creative activities undertaken to increase the body of knowledge and create new applications. It encompasses both fundamental exploration and technological innovation aimed at improved products, services, or processes. In the field of artificial intelligence, R&D is central, as it enables the conception, prototyping, and validation of new algorithms, architectures, or use cases, distinguishing itself from mere operational deployment or commercial exploitation of existing technologies.
Use Cases and Examples
In AI, R&D may target the creation of new machine learning models, the optimization of neural networks, or the search for solutions to unsolved challenges such as explainability or system robustness. Academic research labs, tech company innovation departments, and deeptech startups undertake R&D to design conversational agents, computer vision systems, or natural language processing tools. R&D is also used to improve industrial processes, healthcare, automotive applications, or finance.
Main Software Tools, Libraries, Frameworks
AI R&D relies on tools like Python, R, or Julia, and specialized libraries and frameworks: TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, Scikit-learn, JAX, Hugging Face Transformers, and OpenAI Gym for reinforcement learning research. Data management and distributed computing platforms (Spark, Dask, Ray) are also common. For collaboration and R&D project management, tools like Git, MLflow, Weights & Biases, or DVC are frequently used.
Recent Developments, Evolutions, and Trends
AI R&D is marked by the rise of foundation models, the integration of generative AI, and the democratization of self-supervised learning. Companies are investing heavily in R&D to improve model energy efficiency, ethics, and governance. New paradigms such as hybrid AI, federated learning, and model quantization are emerging as major research directions. Lastly, the mutualization of efforts via open source and international consortiums accelerates the pace of R&D innovation.