Eindhoven: the center of AI engineering

The Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) has launched a new initiative to make the Brainport region the center for the application of artificial intelligence in engineering. Commissioned by the TUE’s High Tech Systems Center (HTSC), Albert van Breemen is already running the AI Engineering Lab. Independently, the university’s executive board has tasked Carlo van de Weijer with creating an umbrella research center, the Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute (EAISI), which is set to start at the beginning of the new academic year, on 2 September. Anticipating the merger of both, Van Breemen has been appointed EAISI program manager for the high tech industry.

With a one hundred million euro investment from the TUE, the EAISI – pronounced ‘easy’ – is looking to promote the university’s educational and scientific activities in the field of AI, in order to attract students, researchers, industrial partners and (European) investors. The director of the TUE’s strategic area Smart Mobility, Carlo van de Weijer, is in the driver’s seat. He’s supported by a program management team consisting of Albert van Breemen, Paul Merkus and Ben Rutten, with the help of Mark Mietus, operational director at the Data Science Center Eindhoven. Edwin van den Heuvel (professor of statistics), Paul van den Hof (professor of model-based systems and control), Wijnand IJsselsteijn (professor of cognition and affect in human-technology interaction) and Nathan van de Wouw (professor of dynamics and control) form the new institution’s scientific committee.