Prof. Dr. Jürgen Gall in an article by Handelsblatt on the EU's new AI initiative
In Europe, there is currently a shortage of computing power that hinders the development of large AI models. The recently announced AI initiative of the European Commission aims to close this gap and improve the situation.
Last week, the European Union made clear its priority on artificial intelligence. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a new initiative in the field of AI in her recent State of the Union address: The EU intends to make it easier for startups to access the powerful supercomputers in Europe.
The background to this initiative is that there is not enough computing capacity in Europe to develop large AI models. Nevertheless, the German AI community expressed concerns that the measure just announced does not go far enough.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Gall, Computer Science III Information Systems and Artificial Intelligence, welcomes the EU initiative, but he emphasizes that there is a need for additional continuous investment in infrastructure and low-threshold offerings for companies and startups. According to Prof. Gall, "a coordinated offer of supra-regional Tier-2 high-performance computers optimized for AI and national Tier-1 GPU clusters and AI expertise in data centers" would significantly improve the situation in Germany.
As an example of what such a service could look like, Prof. Gall mentions the AI Service Center WestAI, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
WestAI combines the computing capacities of the supercomputer in Jülich and RWTH Aachen University with the AI competencies of the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and the University of Paderborn.
Click here for the full-length article (in german): https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/ki/ki-initiative-der-eu-warum-von-der-leyens-supercomputer-deutschlands-ki-start-ups-nur-bedingt-helfen/29393270.html
