AI agents take over at SETI's Allen Telescope Array, scanning for extraterrestrial intelligence
At the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, AI agents can now steer the telescope and analyze incoming radio signals on the fly, built on Nvidia's Holoscan platform, which the SETI Institute and Breakthrough Listen use to process telescope data in real time at up to 2.4 terabits per second. The team says work that used to take weeks can now wrap up in hours, and that it detected a pulsar in the Crab Nebula in real time using AI, a first. The team now wants to test open-source software that can run locally on the edge, with an eye toward future sensors on the far side of the Moon.