Applying AI systems

AI applications contribute directly to economic prosperity, social welfare and solving major societal challenges. AiNed develops the AI innovation power of Dutch companies and governments by bringing together stakeholders from the AI innovation ecosystem in different types of projects to accelerate the application of newly developed AI technology.

The subprogram includes the following program components.

• AiNed valorization and technology transfer
• AiNed Breaking Barriers
• AiNed System Breakthrough Project

Although the potential of AI technology for SMEs is enormous, Dutch innovative and early adopter SMEs lag behind in the application of AI knowledge. The AiNed Programme therefore opens an AI-specific MIT call (SME -innovation stimulation Region and Top Sectors) for cooperating SMEs every year in the period 2021-2026. Thereby, at least one company - or affiliated knowledge institution - is the carrier of AI-specific knowledge and at least one company is the sector-specific applicator of that AI knowledge.

Annually, this AI-specific MIT call will be opened with a grant budget of €3.5 million. With this, the AiNed Programme provides an important impetus for AI projects for and by SMEs. As of July 2023, 16 MIT AI projects have been honored with a total grant budget of €3,550,000. See here for the news release announcing the 2023 MIT AI projects supported by AiNed.

The Netherlands has a large number of AI startups. However, only a very limited proportion of them are currently achieving scale. The lack of scaling up of this group of AI startups is a major problem both economically and socially. Only companies that can scale up make a big impact and create value. Especially when it comes to AI, achieving scale is essential to be and remain relevant.

Launch of Breaking Barriers Programme in Q2 2024
The AiNed Breaking Barriers Programme will start in the second quarter of 2024. Through this Programme streamlines the process from regional start-up via national professionalisation to European upscaling for AI scale-ups. AI companies that are ready to scale further can use the Breaking Barriers Programme Receive a thorough business assessment. After this, they can receive targeted tailor-made support for the challenges they face in scaling up.

Tailor-made support for AI startups
As a one-stop-shop, it mobilizes Breaking Barriers Programme To this end, it provides generic upscaling expertise from its partners and complements this with AI-specific support regarding access to data and infrastructure, AI legislation and state-of-the-art AI developments and applications, among other things. To this end, the Breaking Barriers team works together with the best national and international partners for the sustainable strengthening of the AI startup community. Breaking Barriers has the ambition to have had an intake with around 100 young AI companies by 2029, of which ~35 participants have demonstrable success with Breaking Barriers, in terms of serious growth in terms of turnover or funding.

System Breakthrough projects focus on the innovation power of Dutch companies and governments with AI and realize a breakthrough in accelerated application of modern AI technology. A system breakthrough project therefore specifically brings together necessary parties along the value chain in a sector to achieve a concrete goal. Necessary parties include, for example, actors focused on system development, regulation and applied scientific knowledge.

The application of an AI product, process or service leads to an innovation in the market that benefits all parties in the value chain. There is a breakthrough that fits an open and transparent market model. A system breakthrough project is integrative, in the sense that it uses knowledge, experience and results from other AiNed program components such as the AiNed Learning communities, ELSA Labs and Innovation Labs.

The AiNed Programme launched a project in 2023 from the resources of the National Growth Fund to work out a value chain improvement project with a number of sectors. The most promising project gets to deliver. This will lead to one chain project of at least €10 million, with a maximum grant budget of €5 million. The system breakthrough project to be selected will play an important ambassador role for all of AiNed and the Netherlands AI Coalition. It will demonstrate that it is possible for a concrete AI application to actually be able to take steps towards open and transparent markets, and that cooperation along the value chain leads to results with obvious social and economic benefits.

More information about the approach can be found in the information brochure. In December 2022, AiNed selected three promising chain project proposals and awarded them a maximum contribution of €150,000 to develop a proof of concept. At the end of 2023, AiNed will select one project from these. These are the following three projects:

1. Artificial intelligence for Diagnostics And Maintenance (ADAM) with Embedded Systems Innovation group (ESI) as the leader.
   This project proposal focuses on the application of AI in the engineering industry: intelligent diagnostics for improved reliability and maintenance of complex physical cyber systems. Read more.
2. AI for the Future Energy System (AIFES) with Alliander as the lead partner.
   From this project proposal, advanced AI prediction techniques will be developed, which are essential for up-to-date knowledge about grid capacity and utilization of the energy system. Read more.
3. Health AI with Philips Electronics Nederland B.V. as the lead partner. In this proposal, the concrete result is the development of a new AI prototype (TRL6) using data scattered across Dutch hospitals. As well as a first market model for health data where European values are taken into account. Read more.

Publication date April 2024.