AI in Action: Artificial Intelligence Prototype Tools in a Future National Secure Data Service

Music City Center 

Room: CC-104C 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is shifting how governments, businesses, and households access information and use it to make everyday decisions. As trusted sources of high-quality statistics, federal statistical agencies are grappling with how to apply emerging technologies, like AI, safely and fairly. This includes using them to increase the discoverability of public datasets and to expand access to data in ways that were not possible even a few years ago.

The National Secure Data Service (NSDS) demonstration project has launched a series of projects to prototype and test AI technologies. The lessons learned and tools developed from these projects will provide valuable shared services and resources for the entire federal statistical system and broader data and evidence ecosystem.

The panel will begin by discussing the vision of the NSDS including development plans and the timeline for a public soft launch of an NSDS 1.0 in 2027. It will then highlight these four projects:

*AI-Ready Data Products to Facilitate Discovery and Use: This project explores how to make agencies' statistical data products more readily ingestible by AI technologies. It will produce an AI readiness assessment as a shared resource for any agency looking to test the machine understandability of its public data products and an AI readiness prototype tool to transform public data products into machine-understandable, AI-ready data.

*Data Access Alternatives: Artificial Intelligence Supported Interfaces: This project seeks to develop and pilot an AI chatbot that answers user questions based on public data products from federal statistical agencies. The chatbot will focus on types of data products that represent how federal statistical agencies publish public data: (1) public use files, (2) data tables, and (3) analytical reports.

*Artificial Intelligence for Enhancing Data Quality, Standardization, and Integration: This project aims to develop a set of data processing tools using AI to enhance data standardization and integration activities. It will then prototype a user-friendly toolkit and user interface for a future NSDS, providing an accessible and unified system for agencies addressing data quality.

*Synthetic Data Generation with Large Real-World Data: This project explores how synthetic data generation, a type of privacy-enhancing technology, works with large real-world data (that is, datasets with over 30 billion rows of data) in a secure super compute environment. This is a joint project between the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot and NSDS Demonstration. These are independent initiatives with expected synergies as reflected in the CHIPS and Science Act requirement that the NSDS demonstration consult with the NAIRR Task Force in NSDS development.

Government Statistics Section