The Danish Pioneer Centre for AI marks its official opening
The Pioneer Centre for AI is headed by American top AI researcher Professor Serge Belongie. He hopes that the centre, with its focus on societal challenges, people and design, will challenge and change the way artificial intelligence creates value for Denmark.
"The unique character of the Pioneer Centre for AI comes through in the way in which we work with the grand challenges. The challenges we will confront are not merely a matter of big data and bigger models; rather, they are high-touch, messy, deeply human problems, for which tech is but one component, situated alongside vital contributions from social science, participatory design, journalism, public policy, and beyond."
"The unique character of the Pioneer Centre for AI comes through in the way in which we work with the grand challenges. The challenges we will confront are not merely a matter of big data and bigger models; rather, they are high-touch, messy, deeply human problems, for which tech is but one component, situated alongside vital contributions from social science, participatory design, journalism, public policy, and beyond."
The centre already has several research projects across the five universities; Aalborg University, Aarhus University, DTU, the IT University of Copenhagen and University of Copenhagen. The projects aim to create social impact in areas such as health and biotech, energy, and infrastructure as well as climate and biodiversity.
Long-term solutionThe centre was initiated by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science in collaboration with the Danish National Research Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, VILLUM FONDEN and the five universities.
The Pioneer Center for AI is Denmark's first pioneer center and the result of a unique collaboration between the Ministry of Higher Education and Science, five Danish foundations and five Danish universities. The center has received grants of more than DKK 350 million.
The Department of Computer Science at University of Copenhagen functions as host and administrator for the centre, while researchers from the four other universities act as co-leads. The center is currently located in Østerbro in Copenhagen, but during the autumn of 2022, it is expected that University of Copenhagen's old observatory in the centre of Copenhagen will be ready to house the center.
Find more info on the pioneer center's website.
“The Pioneer Centre is the result of an ambitious national effort to secure the future of transformative Danish AI basic research. To enable the recruitment of top international talent, the funding is extraordinarily long-term - up to 13 years. I am sure that the centre's research will be at least as extraordinary and will help to lift Denmark all the way to the international top in the field," says Thomas Bjørnholm, Executive Chief Scientific Officer of VILLUM FONDEN.
Read moreIn University of Copenhagen's press release about the opening:
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