Meeting at the European Commission to announce the European Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for AI
Today, there was a meeting at the European Commission to announce the European Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for AI led by @Tailor in collaboration with the rest of the ICT-48 networks of excellence: Humane AI Net , @Elise, AI4Media, euROBIN project, and @ELSA. Paul Lukowicz, Marko Grobelnik, Dino Pedreschi, Andreas Keilhacker, & Passant Elagroudy represented Humane AI Net.
** Summarized SRA: https://lnkd.in/ewiPQD3D
DISCLAIMER: these are only some quick notes from some attendees highlighting discussion points
MAIN OBJECTIVES
1) Introducing the SRA to the community
2) Discuss what to do about large language models in the EU => interesting as a response to a recent call for action by the NoEs (https://lnkd.in/eFTZWg6e)
SOME DISCUSSION POINTS
1/ There’s a need to encourage European investment in AI to match other countries like china & USA
2/ There’s a need for larger visionary “change the world” projects to retain talents in Europe.
3/ There is a necessity to have a European alternative to chatGPT with European values ingrained (ActGPT capitalizing on industrial IoT).
4/ Request to create a separate AI track in the ERC applications from the rest of computer science.
5/ There’s a problem in joining forces & sharing the data across organizations => focus on building pipelines & each orga. trains on it’s own.
6/ ADRA has money & connections. Reach out for industrial collaboration & contribute to EU policies! (https://lnkd.in/eJ4aVXjQ)
7/ There’s a new research agenda being built tailored around industry called SRIDA. It is lead by ADRA. The SRA and SRIDA will drive a lot of funding calls in the upcoming period.
8/ Can we have a European startup accelerator focused on AI rather than only national initiatives?
9/ Current infrastructure is not the optimal one for LLMs (use GPUs that’ll be obsolete later or optimize algo. now?)
10/ Can the commission provide flexibility to the project’s outputs to readjust direction to the current changes?
11/ Add your content to AI on Demand platform (https://www.ai4europe.eu/)
Funding opportunities
1/ For startups / SMEs: [BB france] to train models – [German Entrepreneurship] generic AI.
2/ THE GRAND CHALLENGE
** Grand challenge like DARPA ones upcoming next September.
** Commission is currently collecting feedback on the process. There will be a group recommendation by NoEs on the process.
** All NoEs should now look: who can compete in the teams + recommendations for process + how to bring industry sponsors
** The winner will have access to HPC resources + (maybe man power). The commission is currently collecting exact needs.
** It will also be available for rising stars (aka. PhD level)
Upcoming events
1/ ELISE foundational model workshop in July with the big open source models.
2/ 26-sep here: better discuss the infrastructure situation.
