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title: Data Mining
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## Data Mining
Data mining is the process in which large sets of data are analysed by computers in order to identify trends, and to solve problems which require complex data analysis.

## What is Data Mining?
Data mining is the way in which computers search huge repositories of data and apply an algorithm to explore specific trends, patterns etc that the user is looking for.
The way in which data mining works is through the use of models, built by data scientists/programmers, which usually use complex mathematical algorithms. This utilises both the ingenuity of the programmer, and in turn the brute force of the computer. As a result, large-scale patterns can be identified by the computer, which help to better answer the question posed by the researcher.

## Uses
Data mining has many uses, some of which include: banking, retail, astronomy, medicine and government security. It can also be used for deep learning, which involves the training of virtual 'neural networks' for specific tasks. A notable use of this was by the DeepMind team, who created the system AlphaGo, which beat the go world champion 4-1 in a series heralded as a historic breakthrough for artifical intelligence. AlphaGo involved the use of thousands of previous game records to train the neural network (i.e data mining). 

#### More Information:
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<a href='https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/datamine.111/b28129/process.htm#CHDFJEJI'>Oracle Data Mining article</a>
<a href='https://www.britannica.com/technology/data-mining'>Encyclopedia Britannica - Data Mining</a>
