Technology glossary

Ablation Study

An experiment that removes or disables one component of a model at a time to measure how much that component contributes to performance. It can identify useful inputs, but it does not by itself prove causal relationships.

Acoustic Identification

A method of identifying animals, machines, events, or environmental conditions by analyzing distinctive sound patterns in recorded audio.

Acrylic Acid

An industrial chemical used to make polymers, coatings, adhesives, and absorbent materials.

Action Chunking

Action chunking is a robotics and machine-learning technique that represents multiple low-level control steps as a compact action sequence, reducing how often a model must generate new commands while balancing speed against precision.

Actively Exploited Vulnerability

A security weakness for which reliable evidence shows that a malicious actor has exploited it in a system without the owner's permission. Under the EU Cyber Resilience Act, a manufacturer's awareness of active exploitation starts mandatory reporting deadlines.

Adaptation Limit

A point beyond which a person, ecosystem or system can no longer reduce climate risk to an acceptable level through available adaptation measures. Limits may be soft and changeable, or hard and effectively irreversible.

Adaptive Laboratory Evolution(ALE)

A method that repeatedly grows microorganisms under a chosen pressure so that variants better suited to the condition become more common over many generations.

Adaptive Optics

A system that measures optical distortion and changes mirrors or other components in real time to correct it. Astronomy and free-space communications use adaptive optics to compensate for turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere.

Additive Manufacturing in Rocketry

The use of layer-by-layer manufacturing, commonly called 3D printing, to produce rocket parts such as engines, injectors, and structural components. It can reduce part counts and production time while enabling complex shapes that are difficult to make conventionally.

Advanced Packaging

Techniques that combine multiple chips and high-speed connections into one package or system.

Age Assurance

The set of methods an online service uses to estimate, verify or confirm whether a user falls within a required age range. It can include self-declaration, document checks, facial age estimation, account history or signals from third parties, with different levels of certainty and privacy impact.

Agent Audit Trail

A chronological record of actions an AI agent proposed, attempted and completed, including approvals and denials.

Agentic Computing

A computing approach in which AI systems plan and carry out multi-step actions across software, tools, and services.

AI Accelerator

A specialized processor designed to perform the matrix calculations used in artificial intelligence training and inference more efficiently than a general-purpose CPU.

AI Agent

A software system that uses an AI model to choose and execute multiple steps toward a goal, often by calling tools and evaluating intermediate results.

AI Agent Sandbox

A restricted computing environment that limits an AI agent's access to files, networks, tools and credentials.

AI Capability Threshold

A defined level of measured performance or functional ability that triggers additional review, safeguards or legal obligations for an AI system.

AI Factory

A shared infrastructure and support program that combines high-performance computing, data services, software and expert assistance for developing and deploying AI systems. In the European program, AI factories provide startups, companies and researchers with access to publicly funded supercomputing resources.

AI Infrastructure

The data centers, power systems, networks, chips, cooling equipment, and physical facilities required to develop and operate AI systems.

AI Music Generator

A generative system that creates audio, songs or musical components from text prompts, uploaded audio or other instructions. Such systems may produce melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, vocals and lyrics, depending on their design and training data.

AI Red Teaming

AI red teaming is the structured testing of an artificial intelligence system by simulating misuse, adversarial inputs, or unsafe operating conditions. Its purpose is to expose failure modes before deployment, measure whether safeguards work, and give developers evidence for improving models, tools, permissions, and monitoring.

AI Shopping Assistant

A conversational or agentic system that helps consumers search, compare, evaluate or purchase products. Its answers may combine marketplace data, reviews, seller information and generative model output, so reliability depends on the quality of the underlying records and the platform’s verification rules.

AI Sycophancy

A failure pattern in which an AI system shifts its answer toward a user’s stated belief, preference or desired conclusion instead of maintaining the best-supported response. In high-stakes settings, the problem can turn a correct warning into unsafe reassurance.

AI Transparency Obligation

A legal or governance requirement to disclose relevant information about an AI interaction, system or output. It may include notifying users that they are dealing with AI, technically marking synthetic content or visibly labelling deepfakes.

AI-Assisted Music

Music that remains primarily written and performed by people while using AI for a supporting task such as editing, sound cleanup, arrangement suggestions or production assistance.

AI-Generated Music

A recording whose primary creative elements, such as composition, vocals or instrumentation, are produced by a generative AI system rather than performed or authored mainly by people.

Air Combat Evolution (ACE)

A joint DARPA and US Air Force research program that develops and tests AI agents capable of autonomously piloting fighter aircraft in air combat scenarios.

Airborne Field Campaign

A coordinated research effort that uses instrumented aircraft, ground stations, satellites and models to observe an atmospheric event directly.

Airborne Pathogen

A disease-causing microorganism that can spread through air or suspended particles.

Algorithmic Coaching

The use of algorithms to analyze a person's performance and generate feedback, recommendations, or training plans. It may be applied in sports, education, health, or workplace settings, but its usefulness depends on data quality and appropriate human oversight.