In Hungary, researchers from BME and ELTE coordinate the creation of the EU’s AI platform

A unique artificial intelligence platform will be built in Europe to link professionals and businesses.

The European Union selected the AI4EU consortium from 7 applicants to receive a total funding of EUR 20 million in a research and innovation project related to artificial intelligence. AI4EU includes leading European industrial companies, research centres, small and medium-sized enterprises, higher education institutions and, from Hungary, researchers from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics who will work together to establish the European Union’s mega platform.

The large scale project to be launched in January 2019 aims to build an efficient AI-on-demand platform to promote innovation processes and technology transfer between researchers and users in key sectors such as transport, the process industry and healthcare. A further goal is to catalyse the growth of start-up companies and small and medium-sized enterprises in all potential sectors of AI application.

“This funding allows researchers to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence technologies while also enabling businesses to use them. BME has world-class researchers, laboratories and innovative R&D projects in artificial intelligence and at the same time provides high quality education in this field,” emphasized János Józsa, BME’s rector.

The platform will act as a broker, developer and one-stop shop providing and showcasing services, expertise, algorithms, software frameworks, development tools, components, modules, data, computing resources, prototyping functions and access to funding.

The winning 80-member consortium will be led by the French THALES SERVICES SAS. Some of the prominent industrial partners are Philips, Orange, Allianz, SAP, Siemens, Telenor and ABB. The research centres to be involved include the French CNRS, the German Faunhofer and DFKI, the Italian CNR and the Europe-wide EIT Digital. Small and medium-sized enterprises together with a number of prestigious European universities will also be engaged in the project. The National Contact Point for Hungary will be Géza Németh, the head of the Speech Communication and Smart Interactions Laboratories at BME’s Department of Telecommunications and Media Informatics. The other Hungarian partner of the project will be ELTE University.