TRAIL Institute to boost Artificial Intelligence

Five universities of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation join forces to create an institute dedicated to AI: training, research, products and services.

A

rtificial Intelligence is a major opportunity to transform our societies for the sustainable well-being of its citizens. Based on data acquisition and information processing algorithms, processes in many sectors can be made more efficient, particularly in terms of :

• Quality, efficiency and relocation of products and services,
• More sparing use of resources,
• Increased personalisation,
• Speed of decision making.

Five French-speaking universities (UCLouvain, UMONS, ULB, ULiège, UNamur) and four research centres (CENAERO, CETIC MULTITEL, SIRRIS) have joined forces to create the TRAIL Institute (Trusted AI Labs), dedicated to artificial intelligence, and thus jointly mobilise their resources and expertise in the service of regional development.

Their objective?

To participate in the transformation of the companies of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, in the fields of medicine, media, mobility, manufacturing, energy, construction, governance and education.

TRAIL is structured around three interacting pillars: research (TRAIL Institute), the provision of tools (TRAIL Factory), and services to companies (TRAIL4Ventures):

• The TRAIL Institute aims to promote the creation of talent in AI and to carry out cutting-edge, world-class research in AI in Wallonia and Brussels;
• The TRAIL Factory constitutes a platform for pooling, enabling the efficient operationalisation of technological building blocks and methodologies for the introduction of new processes induced by AI, and facilitates their dissemination and valorisation;
• TRAIL4Ventures, i.e. services to companies, is divided into several missions that the ecosystem wishes to amplify in order to best capture the needs and ideas from the economic fabric (existing companies and entrepreneurs) and facilitate the development of new products and services based on the tools and knowledge developed within TRAIL.

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Contacts

Pr Benoît Macq (co-coordinator), UCLouvain
Pr Thierry Dutoit (co-coordinator), UMONS
Pr Marc Van Droogenbroeck, ULiège
Pr Pierre Geurts, ULiège