March 22, 2024
The new European Pioneer Project on Artificial Antelligence, called DeployAI, has launched a transformative four-year journey. The project aims to redesign the accessibility and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and is aimed at both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the public sector across Europe. This initiative marks the start of a collaborative effort to design the future of IT in Europe.
At the core of DeployAI’s mission is building a fully functional Artificial Intelligence on Demand Platform (AIoDP) for industry and the public sector that will promote trustworthiness, ethics and transparency. This platform will be vendor independent, ensuring fair and democratic access to advanced AI technologies where they are being developed in Europe, including Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLM), enabling greater innovation scale.
To ensure active stakeholder participation, DeployAI will offer matchmaking services, as well as provide an interactive landscape tool, facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing within the European IT community, while a stakeholder observatory will help monitor needs of stakeholders from different fields.
DeployAI’s commitment extends to integrating AIoDP into the European IT ecosystem, fostering collaboration with entities such as European Digital Innovation Centers (EDIHs), Technology Experimentation Facilities (TEFs), Dataspaces, and High Performance Computing infrastructures ( HPC) / Cloud / Edge and the standards organizations. It will have a pivotal role in supporting the recently announced Artificial Intelligence Factories and the GenAI4EU initiative, as part of the Artificial Intelligence Innovation Package.
Leveraging the latest developments in AI technology, DeployAI will provide a comprehensive and reliable catalog of TN resources and expertise, offering the right means and tools to promote the use and transfer of European TN solutions. The platform is aimed at many stakeholders, such as SMEs and public services, who wish to use AI, but also developers, consultants, managers and other AI experts from industry and the public sector.
The project is part of the “Innovation and Excellence in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence” area of the European Commission and started by holding the first official meeting (kick-off meeting) between the partners on February 29 to March 1, 2024, in Berlin, Germany. With the collective effort of 28 partners from 13 European countries, DeployAI brings together a wide range of expertise and resources, from both the private and public sectors, to develop and operate the Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIoDP).
A spokesperson for the European Commission said: “We are very proud to launch DeployAI, a ground-breaking project which will play a central role in the European AI ecosystem, implementing the innovation arm of AIoDP, with the market for reliable artificial intelligence ‘made in Europe’ and the significant support of IT, industry and public sector innovators. We also expect DeployAI to play an essential role in the implementation of the recently announced €4 billion investment AI innovation package to support the development and application of Productive AI, including AI Factories and the GenAI4EU initiative.”
DeployAI project coordinator Joachim Köhler, head of department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS, said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of DeployAI and the critical role it plays in promoting reliable and ethical AI solutions in Europe. With AIoDP, we seek to democratize access to AI technologies, in particular European GenAI models and tools, to ensure digital dominance in this strategically important technology sector.”
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The DeployAI consortium consists of the following organizations:
Project coordinator: Fraunhofer IAIS, Germany
Partners:
• AALTO University, Finland
• Aspect Partners, Germany
• European Center for medium-range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), United Kingdom
• Convotis Services, Austria
• Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. (OTE), Greece
• Croatian Artificial Intelligence Association, Croatia
• National Research Center for Natural Sciences “Demokritos”, Greece
• EIT Digital, Belgium
• Dimecc, Finland
• F6S Network, Ireland
• Bruno Kessler Institute, Italy
• FIWARE Foundation, Germany
• German AI Association, Germany
• Hub France IA, France
• IONOS SE, Germany
• LIGHT ON, France
• LuxProvide SA, Luxembourg
• Science For You (SciFY), Greece
• Silo AI, Finland
• AI Sweden, Sweden
• VDE – Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies, Germany
• Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS), Greece
• CSC- IT Center for Science, Finland
• Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Finland
• Örebro University, Sweden
• Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Associated Partner: Adra – The AI, Data and Robotics Association