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NATIONAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STRATEGY

The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, published in 2019, aims to promote and mobilize society in general, for teaching and research, for innovation and development of products and services supported by AI technologies.

AI technologies promote efficiency and process optimization, improving the quality of services provided, whether public or private, in different sectors of activity. At the same time, they assure justice and well-being, improving citizens’ quality of life. It is therefore important to reinforce the qualification of different agents, students, managers, leaders, employees of the public administration or private companies, in digital skills, namely those involving AI technologies. 

The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy was aligned with the Action Plan of the EU and its member states. A plan that promotes the use of AI technologies to solve global challenges such as health, climate, agriculture or cybersecurity. 

The strategy is based on four main interaction processes: 


    • Portugal's attractiveness to young companies and international production units is high and there is room for improvement. These units work in different industries, but they have the need to develop specialized AI software and high-tech devices for common export. Collaboration with academia is growing on two axes: joint research capture (joint projects and CoLabs) and the qualification pipeline.

 

    • The development of this ecosystem will motivate increasing current levels of innovation for a large number of companies and organizations, including startups, SMEs and the government sector through business networking, benefiting them in the collaboration platforms matured with academia. These include on-demand AI pipelines and Digital Innovation Hubs. The expected results include an increase in the number of patents and the multiplication of businesses based on innovation.

 

    • Research potential in AI and other areas will grow due to the greater share of private investment and because of the added value induced by the challenges brought by innovative companies. In addition, researchers will have a vision of the future of AI itself as a fundamental scientific field. The expected results are a greater attraction of research talent (and as a consequence of professional talent), greater impact of scientific publications and greater ability to join international research networks of excellence. These scientific results, in turn, will return to the productive sectors.

 

  • Academia itself and in collaboration with Industry, will increase its capacity and develop different levels of qualification programs in AI and related fields. Other educational institutions working at different levels of education will also be motivated to invest in qualification, requalification and lifelong learning, fostering personalized qualifications. As a result, Portugal will increase qualification levels and the level of knowledge-intensive employment.



The implementation of the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence has been implemented since its publication. Several initiatives were carried out during this period, including the following:



    • Funding for PhD grants in AI research projects (2020);

 

    • Holding an event on AI in the Retail sector;

 

    • Participation in international forums, namely those concerning the Horizon Europe Program and the Digital Europe Program;

 

    • Calls for the development of AI projects, under the Horizon Europe Framework Agreement: 94 / Value: 2,001M (Health: 13; Culture, Creativity, and Inclusive society: 4; Civil Security for Society: 8; Digital, Industry and Space : 44; Climate, Energy and Mobility: 9; Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment: 16);

 

    • Digital Innovation Hubs – Digital Europe Work Program. Approved on October 15th -(1st call: Q4 2021 –Q1 2022; 2nd call: Q3 2022 –Q4 2022);

 

  • GOOGLE IA Project –2M€ (1st Call–October / November 2021 –500K€).

For 2022, within the scope of the INCoDe.2030 initiative, the following actions are planned:

 

    • Actions to disseminate and promote initiatives developed at national level by public and private entities, academia, innovation centers, etc. 

 

    • 8 webinars where topics related to AI will be discussed;

 

    • Development of the PT AI WATCH platform, which will allow the mapping of AI projects;

 

  • Promotion of actions aimed at the development of digital skills, namely in AI technologies.

At the same time, considering the continuous evolution of this technology and the EU's commitment to Data and Artificial Intelligence, through the financing of new projects, the creation of European data spaces and Digital Innovation hubs and the development of standards associated with regulation, security, privacy and ethics, Portugal will start the process of reviewing and adapting to a new artificial intelligence strategy.


For this purpose, a Working Group will be created composed of representatives from different public and private entities, academia and experts of recognized value. This group will be responsible for reviewing the current strategy and developing a new National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, for the period between 2022 and 2023, and the action plan that will allow the implementation of the recommended strategy for this period.


This strategy is expected to be published for public consultation at the end of April 2022, and its final version published by the end of June 2022.

 

The coordination of the Working Group and the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence is the responsibility of INCoDe.2030.