Collaboration aims to speed AI technology in supply chain

Plotly Technologies, Montreal-based developer of a data science platform for creating analytic applications, announced it has received a $1.7 million contribution from Scale AI, the innovation hub investing in the development of AI and supply chain technology in Canada. Plotly will use the grant to accelerate development of Dash, the company’s platform for building interactive analytic applications for use in multi-node clusters with software applications that demand high availability. The award represents a prestigious nod from Scale AI, one of Canada’s five innovation superclusters, and marks both organizations’ continued commitment to supporting Canada’s position as a global AI hub. 

Dash, an open core offering, enables the development of interactive analytic applications in Python or R and is used by companies worldwide to enable insight and knowledge sharing. Dash provides data scientists with a platform for creating and operationalizing AI and machine learning models in a highly repeatable and scalable process. With Dash, data scientists can quickly and easily create custom UIs so that others in the organization can directly interact with complex models and data without needing to understand the underlying code.

“As companies continue to invest in AI, the need to provide access to and facilitate an understanding of underlying models and outcomes is crucial to realizing potential business benefits, especially in high availability environments like supply chain logistics,” said Jack Parmer, CEO of Plotly. “Today, Dash is helping companies operationalize these investments so that business teams and data science teams are working in lock step. With the added investment from Scale AI, Plotly will be able to quickly extend these capabilities and make them even more beneficial for the development of AI and supply chain technology.”

The investment from Scale AI will support development collaborations between Plotly and several Canadian companies, such as Hydro-Québec and Dex Clothing, to develop AI supply chain analytics solutions with Dash. At Hydro-Québec, for example, development will center around Dash applications for predictive analytics, in an effort to identify where potential problems in the grid are likely to occur, allowing for faster response times and preventative maintenance. At Dex Clothing, Dash development will focus on applying AI to better manage inventory forecasting. Rani Hawli, Chief Operating Officer at Dex Clothing explains, “Machine learning-enabled Dash applications will help us better align inventory levels to Customer demand. Dash is accelerating the rate at which we can identify the best selling products to meet Customer replenishment needs.”

“Scale AI’s mission is to enhance productivity across industries in Canada through the integration of AI in supply chains and to support the emergence of a Canadian AI ecosystem,” said Julien Billot, CEO at Scale AI. “We’re excited to invest in this project with Plotly, a company that is already an established provider of innovative open source and enterprise analytic solutions. Plotly’s commitment to partnering with Canadian businesses and other organizations to speed the development of the most advanced AI solutions will help lift the profile of Québec businesses and continue to distinguish Canadian leadership in AI.”

In line with its foundation as an open core company, Plotly will make this technology broadly available through over 30 free, open source AI-focused application templates. Plotly will also offer more than 10,000 hours of training on Dash to Scale AI consortium partners. The development of high availability capabilities will be available through Plotly’s Dash Enterprise offering.