The University of Salamanca is granted the only International Chair in AI and Demographic Challenge funded by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence
The University of Salamanca has been awarded the only Chair in Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence and the Demographic Challenge funded by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA) under the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service. In addition, the Chair in Trustworthy AI and the Demographic Challenge has achieved international status—only six of the twenty or so proposals accepted have achieved this status— so it will receive the maximum funding from SEDIA.
The Chair in Trustworthy AI and the Demographic Challenge is a project coordinated by Juan Manuel Corchado, Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Salamanca, who will direct the Chair included in the highest category of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (ENIA), a plan that aims to continue advancing research related to the application of artificial intelligence to different areas of knowledge.
Moreover, in its development, the Chair in Trustworthy AI and the Demographic Challenge will have the support of several international universities, including the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania), which will collaborate intensively in the project, with the aim of establishing cooperation links between universities and international companies to bring advanced knowledge of AI to companies so as to address the Demographic Challenge through specific training activities, as well as to promote interdisciplinary research in the field of AI as a key tool to address the Demographic Challenge while protecting the rights of users.
Salamanca will thus lead the development of AI at national and international levels and will promote projects of great importance for Castilla y León that will involve the recruitment of researchers for the development of initiatives in which various research groups of the University of Salamanca will be involved.
In addition, the Chair in Trustworthy AI and the Demographic Challenge is aligned with other high impact projects that the University of Salamanca has recently started to work on thanks to European and competitive funding, such as the Spanish Plan, the National Chair in Cybersecurity, and the project with ADIA LAB, in which the University of Salamanca is one of the five universities selected for its development. These initiatives and other similar ones add up to a joint funding of more than 10 million euros to promote the creation of an AI-focused ecosystem at the University of Salamanca. This will lead to the creation of knowledge and to the hiring of experts to support projects in areas such as the Spanish language, health, the demographic challenge, cybersecurity, education, and the digital economy.
Among the most relevant actions of the Chair in Trustworthy AI and the Demographic Challenge is the introduction of a new Doctorate Degree in Artificial Intelligence which, together with other existing PhDs in Computer Engineering, will allow for a high degree of specialisation aimed at providing the graduates with the most advanced tools for the implementation of the solutions sought by the Chair.
Innovation in educational programmes—bachelor’s and master's degree projects in AI and the Demographic Challenge, a new Master's Degree in Artificial Intelligence for the Demographic Challenge—as well as new academic conferences and research seminars, the design and development of roadmaps for AI training in business and public administration and the development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) related to AI and the Demographic Challenge, are all part of the activities planned by the Chair. These activities will be promoted through dissemination, such as the publication of open data and a white paper on Artificial Intelligence for the Demographic Challenge, a new virtual Living Lab to boost experimental developments in Trustworthy AI and the Demographic Challenge, an annual international scientific-technical conference on AI and the Demographic Challenge, the creation of a European scientific-entrepreneurial cluster and the creation of new business models based on AI for the Demographic Challenge.
It is estimated that more than 4,000 people will be able to benefit from this initiative through the different courses, bachelor's and master's degrees, congresses, workshops, seminars, conferences, and collaborations with companies.