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On November 23rd & 24th our fifth AAIC - Applied AI Conference of the year took place, this time with a strong focus on AI in Austria - from startups and community to foreign direct investments.
If you missed it, you still have the chance to rewatch it on our Linkedin Page:
👉 Day 1
👉 Day 2
AI Landscape Austria - What's new?
Clemens Wasner (AI Austria & Enlite AI) provided an overview of the Austrian AI landscape in 2021, showing the distribution of startups in Austria, with the good news that there is a trend of more and more GreenTech and CleanTech startups being founded. Global players such as Amazon have already chosen Austria as the location for their research and development, and now companies such as Crayon, Brainbox AI, and mlxar are following suit, having established their bases in Austria.
"Bring your own use-case"
Jasmin Moradzadeh (aws KI-Marktplatz) gave companies the possibility to call for cooperation by "presenting their own use-case". Julia Guggenberger (Synaptos GmbH) and Thomas Fröhlich (RHI Magnesita) took the opportunity to present their use cases and were able to discuss solution approaches and further details with interested, perhaps future cooperation partners in the one-on-one (b2match) meetings in the afternoon.
Considerations for AI Projects in SMEs
Dr. Dietmar Millinger (twingz) discussed important aspects to consider when working with AI; the expected economic impact of AI, its potential and its limitations.
He reviewed the current state of AI development, briefly explained how AI works and the options available for working with AI. His summarized recommendations are to start the AI project soon, know the data, prioritize buying over making, and make sure there are domain experts in the company.
AI regulations in the EU - a risk-based approach
The EU does not regulate AI technology itself, but specific use cases, depending on their risk potential.
Jeannette Gorzala discussed unacceptable AI systems, which include subliminal manipulation, exploitation of children or disabled people, general-purpose social scoring, or remote biometric identification.
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Areas that will be classified as high-risk applications in the future include
- medical devices and in-vitro diagnostic - lifts, cableway, pressure equipment, machinery, etc. - education and training - law enforcement - creditworthiness and credit scoring - employment and career management - critical infrastructure (traffic, water, gas, heating) - biometric identification
and require a special responsibility for producers, importers as well as users of these applications. Future obligations for companies using AI in high-risk areas include
- using high-quality data, - preparing documentation and system design - providing system transparency and system user information - measures for human oversight - and ensuring certain system accuracy, robustness, and cybersecurity.
AI marketplace - the ecosystem for AI in product creation
Ruslan Bernijazov (Frauenhofer IEM) and Katja Wallis (AI marketplace Germany) presented the KI-Marktplatz ecosystem, which consists of 4 parts; the platform, services, applications and information to overcome existing challenges and connect industry and AI providers.
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Austria as a location for international AI companies
Marion Biber (ABA - Invest in Austria), together with companies such as Florian Berger (Crayon), Wilfried Steiner (TTTech Labs) and Ben James (mlxar), provided insights into the topic of "Austria as a location for international AI companies".
One of the strengths of Austria as a business location is innovation and the support system for innovation. It is probably less well known that Austria already has an RnD share of GDP of 3.23%, which makes us number two in Europe and is attracting international companies
In addition, Vienna also attracts employees who want to move to a place where life and work can be easily combined, also evident from its high ranking on the list of the most livable cities, but is also very attractive for customers, as they like to experience the culture.
AI export success
Matthias Grabner (WKÖ, AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA) shows how foreign trade promotion is interconnected throughout the world. With more than 700 employees and over 80 languages, Austrian companies have access to over 100 offices in 70 countries.
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As a competent partner of Austrian companies, help is provided in the formation of networks around the globe, thus supporting successful exports.
A special form of support is offered by the internationalization campaign "go international", which offers a start-up grant for going global.
Johannes Traxler (EYYES) gave an insight from the perspective of an AI company, about the experiences and benefits of getting in touch with Austria's globally distributed foreign trade centers.
Call for Cooperation - Outcome
Finally, we provided insight into the best-practice exchange between the Austrian and German AI marketplace.