The European Comission has announced that will participate in the creation of four centers for the testing and assessment of Artificial Intelligence systems. It will do so by financing a part of its start-up, with the aim of supporting the development of responsible AI systems and facilitating their compliance with the future AI Law of the European Union. In total, these centers will receive between 43,000 and 65,000 million dollars in financing, which will come from the European Commission and contributions from EU member states.
These centers will have both a physical headquarters and a virtual presence, although work on them has already begun. It did so at the beginning of 2023, and for now it is focused on the areas of agriculture and food production, health data, smart manufacturing and technology for smart cities. In principle, their work will last a minimum of five years.
The center dedicated to smart cities is called CitCom.ai, and its head is the researcher at the Technical University of Denmark Martin Brynskov. According to him, his activity is focused on Artificial Intelligence solutions that could be applied to urban transport, and that include autonomous cars. In other words, his job, “with an initial focus on energy, mobility and connectivity, is to test robotics with AI before it is deployed at points where humans live and move.”
Another of the centers will be dedicated to manufacturing and will be called AI-Matters. It seems that there is still an early stage of development regarding CitCom.ai. its mission will be to review the optimization of factories, the interactions between humans and robots and the adoption of new Artificial Intelligence technologies. Their complete list of services will be available in September.
AgrifoodTEF It will be the third of these centers, and will deal primarily with various areas of technology related to agriculture. These include automated weed removal and automated farming techniques. Also the optimization with AI of the development conditions of tree plantations and horticulture, the management with AI of operations related to livestock and food production to increase sustainability. Also data modeling and standardization of the food processing industry.
The last of the centers TEF-Health, will be made up of a network of hospitals, which will function as direct testing points, as well as laboratory testing facilities for AI and robotics in the healthcare sector. The use cases with which it will work, according to the European Commission, will focus on cancer treatment, neurotechnology, cardiovascular health and intensive care.
The testing and validation of AI-related systems through these centers will likely help AI-related technology develop in line with the AI Law, which the European Parliament passed in early June.
