Project description
AI-based network to support European SMEs
SMEs account for more than 99 % of all businesses in the EU-27 (and the UK) non-financial business sector. It has been recognised that a number of areas require immediate action at EU level to ensure that SMEs will increase Europe’s competitiveness in the AI landscape. To that end, new AI technologies, methods and tools are needed, which can be used expediently and are able to build on digital sovereignty. The EU-funded DIH4AI project aims to encourage the uptake of AI across the economy, supporting joint development and provision of ecosystem, business, technology and transformation services through a sustainable network of digital innovation hubs specialised in AI and targeting SMEs.
Objective
In 2019, SMEs accounted for 99.8% of all enterprises in the EU-28 non-financial business sector and accounted for the majority of the increase in value added (60%) – EU Annual Report on SMEs, (November 2019). In the last years, the EC acknowledged that a number of areas require immediate action at EU level to ensure that: (1) SMEs will increase Europe’s competitiveness in the AI landscape leaving no SME behind (2) New technologies and AI-based product, processes and services are based on European ethical values (3) SMEs get fast, trusted and secure links to data assets, AI methods and tools that can be used expediently and build on digital sovereignty. DIHs (Digital Innovation Hubs) are a fundamental European instrument that has emerged over the last decade to address these limitations and encourage the uptake of AI across the economy.
We simply need to establish the most needed link between the DIH engine and the AI4EU service platform power to ignite a virtuous cross-sectorial European economy of intelligence for SMEs at scale; precisely the SME-friendly AI vision that DIH4AI aims at fulfilling.
The DIH4AI project aims at building a network of AI-on-demand innovation and collaboration platforms, supporting joint development and provision of ecosystem-business-technology-transformation services through a sustainable network of regional DIHs specialized in AI and targeting local SMEs and local tech governmental agencies. The DIH4AI regional platforms are by design interoperable with the pan-EU AI4EU platform thanks to an interoperability framework operating at Portal, Data and Cloud levels, allowing SME-DIH-EU virtuous bi-directional collaborations at the level of shared AI resources, AI-oriented standard data models and ontologies, AI ready FAIR datasets, AI-driven user interaction and services (SAAS) and AI-compatible advanced computation facilities (PAAS and IAAS).
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
20133 Milano
Italy