GRNET Chairman Stefanos Kollias at the “EU AI Factories & AI Champions” workshop, Paris, 10/2/2025

Stefanos Kollias, Emeritus Professor, NTUA and Chairman, Board of Directors, National Infrastructures of Research and Technology – GRNET, operating under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance, participates at the workshop titled: “Building the AI Continent in Europe: AI Champions and AI Factories”, which takes place in the Grand Palais, Paris 10/2/2025.

Context:

The European Commission has put forward an ambitious goal of making Europe an AI Continent. Europe has the talent and the research capabilities but needs to develop a much stronger AI ecosystem to develop its own AI solutions. Europe should also accelerate the adoption of AI by leading industrial sectors as well as by the public sector to enhance productivity growth and competitiveness and to ensure a responsible and sustainable technological transformation in the EU.

Capitalising on the Union’s world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, AI Factories is one of its key initiatives to foster such an innovative European AI ecosystem and enable European companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to thrive in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. The AI Factories will offer access to the computing power, data, software, AI models, support, training and talent – all key ingredients to succeed in AI solutions development and create European AI Champions. They will also play a key role in fostering cooperation of the EU in the international context.

Aim/Concept of Workshop:

The aim of this workshop is to showcase Europe’s progress in developing AI Factories and their links to supercomputing, data and cloud technologies.  It will foster high-level collaboration between the most dynamic large companies, the most promising AI startups, AI Factories and leading European heads of state and governments, including the French Minister of Foreign Trade, Mr. Laurent Saint–Martin and the European Commission Executive Vice–President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Mrs. Henna Virkkunen, with the support of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The workshop will showcase the investment announcements and commitments from Leading European companies that want to support the development of innovative AI models and their integration into new applications and business processes.

The workshop emphasises the efforts to enhance Europe’s competitiveness in AI and drive progress towards an “AI Continent” and AI Champions.

Agenda:

The “EU AI Factories & AI Champions” roundtable agenda is set as follows:

  • Welcome by French Minister of Foreign Trade, Mr. Laurent Saint-Martin.
  • Introduction by European Commission Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Mrs. Henna Virkunnen.
  • Presentation of AI Factories & success story.
  • Interventions of the CEOs of a few leading large European companies on their ambitions in AI and the European ecosystem.
  • Floor open for discussion with leading EU AI Start-ups.

Participants:

  • 10 Representatives from the AI Factories, including EuroHPC JU Executive Director Anders Dam Jensen
  • 35 CEOs from European AI user and AI provider companies

Participating Companies include:

Investor AB, Airbus, ASML, CMA CGM, Dassault Systems, Deutsche Bank, Mercedes-Benz, Novo, Orange, Schwarz, Siemens, Thalès, Helsing, Alan, Aleph Alpha, Black Forest Labs, Dataiku, Doctolib, iGenius, Mistral, SiloAI, Sword, Tilde, Translated, Shift, Cradle, Unbabel, BSC, CSC, EuroHPC, Forschungszentrum Jülich, GENCI, GRNET, LIST, NAISS, HLRS High Performance Computing Center.

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