Switzerland aims to become a global leader in reliable AI

Switzerland is launching a major initiative to position itself as a leading global hub for the development and implementation of trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI). The initiative is led by ETH Zurich and EPFL, two of the top-ranked universities in the world for AI research.

The initiative will leverage the power of Alps, a new supercomputer that will go live in February 2024 at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) of ETH Zurich in Lugano. Alps is one of the world’s most powerful computers and has been specially designed to meet the needs of AI applications. It will have 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), which are essential for training large and complex AI models.

The initiative will use Alps to develop and train new large language models (LLMs), which are AI systems that can understand and generate natural language. These models will be transparent, reliable and ethical, and will be made available as open source for the benefit of society and industry. The initiative will also explore fundamental questions and challenges related to the development and use of LLMs, such as human-AI interaction, ethical frameworks, security and data privacy, scalability and energy efficiency.

The initiative will bring together science, industry and politics to collaborate and drive forward the development and use of AI in Switzerland. It will expand existing partnerships with companies, hospitals and public-sector bodies, and support start-ups in the area of AI. It will also pool the expertise of around a dozen Swiss universities, technical universities and research institutes, and join forces with other international researchers.

The initiative aims to make Switzerland’s AI expertise transferrable to society as a whole and to ensure the country’s digital sovereignty. It will also contribute to the European network of AI excellence, ELLIS, which includes some 40 AI hot spots in Europe.