At a science summit in Copenhagen, the EU Commission launched the pilot of RAISE – the Resource for Artificial Intelligence Science in Europe, to bring together essential resources for developing AI.
The Commission is looking to the RAISE pilot, funded with €107 million under the Horizon Europe programme, to drive transformative scientific breakthroughs, from improving cancer treatments to solving environmental issues and improving predictions of the impact of earthquakes.
“With RAISE we are starting a community to promote scientific excellence, and to tackle the most critical challenges of our era, in health, climate and beyond,” said Research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva: “RAISE will develop powerful AI models and apply them across scientific disciplines – from life sciences to humanities and more.”
RAISE will be a virtual European institute, pooling and coordinating core AI resources, including computational power, data, talent and research funding across the EU Member States and the private sector, to drive both the development of frontier AI and AI-enabled scientific progress.
Key elements of RAISE are:
- Computational power: Access to AI computational power is important for researchers and startups in Europe. RAISE will secure dedicated access time to AI Gigafactories, through the financial contribution of €600 million from the Horizon Europe programme. RAISE will collaborate with the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) to guarantee availability and ensure priority for EU-funded research projects.
- Data: RAISE will support scientists to identify strategic data gaps and to gather, curate and integrate the datasets needed for AI in science.
- Excellence and skills: RAISE will attract global scientific talent and highly skilled professionals to Choose Europe. This includes €75 million under the RAISE pilot for Networks of Excellence and Doctoral Networks to train, retain and attract the best AI and scientific talent.
- Research funding: the Commission aims to double Horizon Europe’s annual investments in AI to over €3 billion, including doubling funding for AI in science.
The European AI in Science Summit was also the occasion to present the first step of the RAISE pilot: the Coordination and Support Action for ‘Facilitated cooperation for AI in science,’ funded with €3 million by Horizon Europe. This Action will connect and interlink the AI in science community across Europe, to support the development of RAISE with and for researchers and innovators.
The Summit also marked the launch of a new Action under the European Research Area (ERA) on ‘Facilitating and accelerating the use of AI in science and research in the ERA.’ This ERA Action will support the setup of RAISE by providing a platform for coordination with Member States.
Facilitated cooperation for AI in Science
European Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Science
Joint Research Centre – News: AI is a strategic tool to improve scientific research
