Media Coverage

Highlights

Warning over brain drain of European AI talent to industry
Figures in Elsevier report on AI research landscape are ‘a call to action’
Times Higher Education, 11 December 2018

  • (…) “European countries need to urgently improve conditions for researchers working in artificial intelligence to stem a brain drain of talent moving from academia to industry, sector leaders have said.” (…)
  • (…)  “Holger Hoos, professor of machine learning at Leiden University, said that he was “deeply concerned” by the brain drain of researchers from European universities, which he said was “progressing at an alarming rate”.
  • He has co-launched an initiative called CLAIRE, which already has the support of around 1,400 AI experts. It aims to strengthen pan-European cooperation on AI and hopes to establish a central state-of-the-art AI hub similar in scale to the Cern physics lab in Switzerland.
  • “We need a massive pan-European effort to coordinate and support excellence in AI research and innovation – an effort that generously supports the very best talent in the field and that matches expertise between academia and industry,” Professor Hoos said.” (…)

UK and EU AI communities will only be globally significant if they work as one
The European Union and the UK will be left behind in artificial intelligence research and development if they take separate paths after Brexit
Computer Weekly, 22 January 2020

  • (…) Asked whether the UK AI community will play a role in the organisation after Brexit, [Holger] Hoos said: “You bet, at least if we have anything to say about it.” (…)
  • (…) “[Hoos said:] “We made it very clear that no matter what happens with Brexit and the relationship between the EU and the UK, in AI we should work together.”
  • The EU and the UK will have to work closely together if they are to have any significance in global AI developments, said Hoos. The US and China are the biggest players, but there is an opportunity for another region to set a new path, he added. “China and the US are very different to each other and different to Europe in how AI is seen going forward.” (…)
  • “We want to help ensure that Europe can play a leading role in AI research and innovation,” [Hoos] said. “We believe, as many do, that AI is a very important set of technologies going forward, not only for economic prosperity, but for the benefit of society. We therefore think it is very important that Europe as a geographic region is doing the right thing with AI in order to remain competitive and do the right thing for European citizens.”

How Europe can improve the development of AI
Its real clout comes from its power to set standard
The Economist, 20 September 2018

  • (…) “To be successful in the global push for AI, Europe needs to stand united; weakly coordinated national AI initiatives are insufficient to compete globally.” (…)
  • (…) “to become a powerhouse in AI, Europe will have to overcome its divisions, digital and otherwise” (…)
  • See also CLAIRE’s brief memorandum, “Memo on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Europe: Funding and Positioning“, created after the prominent coverage on AI in Europe in the Economist.
  • This memo is intended for decision makers at the national and EU levels, and addresses the 5 main points of the Economist articles “Can the EU become another AI superpower?” and “How Europe can improve the development of AI”:
  • To be successful in the global push for AI, Europe needs to stand united; weakly coordinated national AI initiatives are insufficient to compete globally.
    1. Artificial intelligence is fundamentally important
    2. Artificial intelligence requires both machine reasoning and machine learning
    3. Europe needs a central AI hub
    4. Europe has a potential comparative advantage

Over 2,000 European AI experts join hands to challenge US, China in artificial intelligence
More than 2,000 researchers join forces to urge EU to help continent build ‘Google-style’ infrastructure as counterweight to the two leading AI players
South China Morning Post, 21 September 2018

  • (…) “[Philipp Slusallek] said one of the main goals of [CLAIRE] was to nurture AI talent and retain it in Europe. This could be accomplished by setting up dedicated AI research and development centres throughout the continent, which would provide “Google-scale” infrastructure such as computing power and data centres, he said.” (…)
  • (…) “In recent years some major exponents of the field such as Yann LeCun, founder of Facebook’s AI Research lab, and Google Brain’s Geoffrey Hinton were born and educated in European countries but moved to North America to continue their work.” (…)
  • (…) “Europe spent about US$4 billion on AI research in 2016 while China spent US$7 billion, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute last year. But this was dwarfed by the figure for North America which was estimated to be about US$23 billion.” (…)

Coverage of CLAIRE Launch (June 2018)

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 June 2018 – Front page article.
One of the most prominent and widely read daily newspapers in Germany.


The NOS 20:00 Evening News and corresponding article, 18 June 2018.
NOS is one of the main public TV stations in the Netherlands.
The article starts at 4:50, in Dutch, but Holger Hoos is interviewed in English from 5:45.

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