The OECD.AI Policy Navigator

The aim of the project is to create a central catalogue/ register for all ministries on productive and planned AI initiatives.

Austria’s Programme for AI Literacy and Skills is being developed to improve AI knowledge and digital skills across the population. It focuses on groups with lower digital literacy, such as the elderly and rural residents, and promotes gender diversity in AI skills. The programme aims to broaden Austria’s pool of IT and AI experts.

Austria has established a “Digital Skills Initiative” (Digitale Kompetenzoffensive) as an intersectional cooperation between five federal ministries (BKA, BMKOES, BMAW, BMF and BMBWF). The initiative focuses on the development and coordination of measures for digital literacy and skills. Under the umbrella of the initiative, the Digital Competencies and Skills strategy outlines how Austria is going to achieve increased digital competencies among the citizens.

The focus on AI in the performance agreements resulted in a bundle of projects and activities with a focus on AI, some individual measures, some inter-university. The goal was to support the uptake of AI in academia and expanding AI-Literacy/skills and advancing AI research. Measure are for e.g. the establishment/ expansion of HPC infrastructure, the creation of (further) training opportunities on AI for teachers, researchers and students, new AI degree programs or more AI professorships.

The Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy is planning to establish an AI observatory.

Systematic survey and target group-specific preparation of the current state of research state of research on ecologically sustainable AI systems and AI applications and development of a guideline on Green AI.

The AI Monitor aims to provide information about usage of AI as well as opportunities and challenges related to AI. Updated annually, it will comprise a dashboard with a broad range of quantitative data, alongside short introductions to lighthouse projects and initiatives within the Austrian AI ecosystem and contributions by the Austrian AI Advisory Board and the AI Stakeholder Forum.

Examination of the acquisition and operation of a supercomputer for AI (AI-oriented HPC) within the framework of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking as a fundamental element of an AI Factory. The aim is to determine the specific requirements, the use, operation and possible connection and cooperation with existing infrastructures existing infrastructures are to be coordinated with the key stakeholders. The measure will be implemented depending on the availability of additional funds.

The aim of this project is to establish a secure environment for testing and using generative and other AI technologies, taking into account data protection and information security, and to make this technology available to research, teaching and administration. In addition, an experimental open source environment will be made available on the MUSICA server, in particular to train specific models and develop new innovative services for teaching, research and university administration.