The EU is investing a fresh €50 million (£44 million) in AI technologies, this week announcing a call for proposals as it solicits interest from member states in hosting new AI Centres of Excellence.
The EU sees cooperation between member states as crucial in becoming competitive at an international level, and hopes with the project to create tighter networks between researchers spread across the EU.
(The European Commission openly acknowledges that it lags China and the US in AI – and may well struggle to compete, saying: “For the EU, it is not so much a question of winning or losing a race but of finding the way of embracing the opportunities offered by AI in a way that is human-centred, ethical, secure, and true to our core values.”)
See also: EU Releases 7 Guidelines for AI Ethics
The Call for proposals states that: “Networks are expected to mobilise researchers to collaborate on key AI topics, to reach critical mass on these topics and to increase the impact of the funding in progressing faster in joined efforts rather than working in isolation, with fragmented and duplicated efforts.”
Each network will communicate its latest findings and advances in technology to all of the academic and industrial AI laboratories connected with the project in Europe.
A key objective will be to develop greater ‘synergies and cross-fertilization’ between the centres and industry. This will entail joint internships and researcher collaboration on an array of AI projects.
EU AI and Industry
Industry is already in the process of establishing AI researcher centres within EU states as signified by the agreement reached between Luxembourg and Nvidia to create a national artificial intelligence (AI) lab.
Under that agreement Nvidia will supply state-of-the-art hardware and software for the centre, which will investigate potential AI implementation in multiple national industries such as finance, healthcare and security.
Nvidia will also provide its expertise and tools, but the project involves a host of researchers from an array of Luxembourgian institutions.
The EU AI call for proposals went live this week . Interested parties have until 13 November 2019 to submit.