Summary

The policy plan consists of three sections that complement and reinforce each other.

Strengthening top AI strategic basic research in Flanders

It is intended that Flemish knowledge institutions, universities and strategic research centers will receive 12 million euros per year in funding. Under this section, the AI research program must be realized. The program rests on four pillars or Grand Challenges:

• AI-driven data science

Many industrial processes and systems in society impose complex constraints on decision making. This first research pillar, subtitled 'Making Data Science Hybrid, Automated, Trusted and Actionable', focuses on making automatic analyses of available data, taking existing prior knowledge and data into account and generating new knowledge through machine learning. And all this while at the same time respecting the requirements of security, ethics, and privacy.

• AI in the edge

This research pillar should lead to application-oriented cases that are far ahead of the state of the art for distributed and hierarchical AI systems, advanced signal processing, and learning algorithms for extracting useful information from the edge.

• Multi-Actor collaborative AI

In multi-actor systems, different computers interact with each other. They each make autonomous decisions. It is fundamental that none of the computers knows the whole system, nor has direct control over the other computers. This is interesting for self-driving cars that adapt to the behaviors of people and other autonomous vehicles. Or for privacy-sensitive systems where one actor cannot disclose all its data to the other actors. The research focuses on the adaptability, robustness, manageability and preconditions for the proper functioning of multi-actor systems.

• Human-like AI

This research pillar focuses on designing AI systems that communicate and interact with humans as naturally as possible, including through the use of spoken and written language or image recognition.

More information that includes recent updates on the Flemish AI research program can be found here.

Implementation in the Flemish business community

Flemish companies and other actors receive 15 million euros per year to optimize the digitisation of processes and the implementation of AI. The aim of this part is to raise awareness, inform and advise as many companies as possible about the possibilities of AI. The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Agency (VLAIO) supervises the implementation part.

More information about this section can be found on the website: www.digitaletoekomst.be

Accompanying policies focused on awareness, training, and ethical framing

This component includes support activities in the field of ethics, education and training. Part of the component includes the establishment of a knowledge centre on AI (Knowledge Centre Data & Society) that focuses on the ethical, social and legal issues in the field of AI and data applications.

The second component includes the creation of the Flanders AI Academy. The academy should prepare and support the Flemish workforce for the changes that AI will bring about in their profession.

The budget for both initiatives is 5 million euros per year.