Portugal participates in one of the first Artificial Intelligence factories in Europe

The Portuguese Government, via the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, the Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Youth and Modernisation is pleased with the European High-Performance Computing (EuroHPC)’s decision, which selected today the proposal for Portugal’s participation in installing one of the first European Artificial Intelligence (AI) factories.

The AI factories, which will be installed over the next year in seven Member States, combine national and EU resources in a collaborative effort by 17 European countries. The seven consortia bring together various Member States, among which is Portugal.

The creation of the AI factory and boosting the computing capacity for AI are new measures announced that are part of the National AI Agenda to be presented in 2025.

The national application falls under a joint venture by Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and Romania, represented respectively by the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS), the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT), the Turkish Science and Technology Research Council (TÜBITAK) and the Romanian National IT Research and Development Institute (ICI Bucure?ti).

The system installed at the AI Factory will develop and operate an Artificial Intelligence based computing infrastructure. It will serve the EU AI innovation ecosystem to enable the use of Artificial Intelligence by the Portuguese corporate fabric, the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), the public administration bodies, and national researchers in both an academic and non-academic context.

The application under which Portugal takes part will operate an IA factory associated with the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer located in Barcelona and acquired through a partnership between Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. This application also includes an interface structure on national soil with dedicated human resources to provide high value services and support SMEs in using this machine and applying artificial intelligence.

The application, with national participating and funding, will have an experimental platform, which will be the infrastructure to develop and test innovative AI models and applications, as well as to foster collaboration throughout the whole of Europe.

This measure is yet another initiative to strengthen Portugal’s commitment to create an Artificial Intelligence ecosystem with the Government as the greatest research and innovation driver, just like the Portuguese LLM.

About EuroHPC AI Factories

The EuroHPC AI Factories initiative was designed to set up a robust and interconnected AI centres’ network. These centres, one of which will be housed in Portugal, will operate as one-stop-shops and offer companies in their startup phase, SMEs and researchers comprehensive assistance, including access to AI-optimised High Performance Computing, training, and specialised technical knowledge.

Selecting these seven entities, which will operate the new AI factories on behalf of EuroHPC will enable the research and development of cutting-edge AI applications, offer industry access to advanced AI tools and innovation in areas such as healthcare, energy, and the climate transition.