Developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have a decisive impact on the future. The impact of new initiatives, from nursing-care robots to self-driving cars, depends on machine learning algorithms and smart software.

Alderman for Education Simone Kukenheim: ‘Amsterdam Science Park is a leading centre for scientific research and education. By establishing an AI hub, the City of Amsterdam and the UvA will strengthen Amsterdam’s knowledge economy as well as the position of Amsterdam and Amsterdam Science Park as one of the most important European centres in the area of science education and research.’

Geert ten Dam, president of the UvA’s Executive Board: ‘Amsterdam is widely recognised both in the Netherlands and abroad for its leading scientific expertise in the area of AI. In recent years we have established excellent partnerships with, among others, Bosch in the Deltalab and Qualcomm in the QUVA lab. In this new building we can create more of these types of partnerships in order to tackle the technological and social challenges of AI. The use of AI additionally offers numerous opportunities for issues relating to health care, safety and sustainability. Because AI also has major legal, ethical and cultural implications, the UvA as a comprehensive institution is ideally equipped to research these aspects from various disciplinary perspectives.’

Education, research and co-creation

Developments in the field of artificial intelligence are progressing quickly. This initiative aims to accommodate the rapid growth in education, research and co-creation in the field of Informatics and AI. It will be an open hub where innovative solutions are developed in various areas, new products and applications are developed together with the private sector, and where students and professionals are educated in the latest AI knowledge. The aim is to begin construction in 2019 so that the building can be in use by early 2021.