The OECD.AI Policy Navigator

embrAIsme is an Interreg Europe project co-financed by the Federal Chancellery Austria which endeavours to encourage AI takeup at SMEs, in particular by raising awareness of AI and the importance of AI skills, facilitating access to funding and building tools to ease the compliance burden of SMEs.

Austria has three national Digital Innovation Hubs and four European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), which provide SMEs with support in digital transformation and the use of AI through access to expertise and infrastructure. One of these European Hubs, the AI5Production Hub, focuses specifically on AI. Comprising 16 partner institutions in Vienna and Upper Austria, it offers manufacturing companies comprehensive support with digitalisation.

The project aims to establish the foundations for technically implementing laws and legally binding documents using symbolic AI and logical programming paradigms. It also focuses on integrating these technologies into e-government, particularly within Austrian administrative processes and European interoperability initiatives.

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.

The Agreement Implementation Act 2024 provides a legal framework for applying international and European agreements in health and social care. It ensures that Austria meets required standards and obligations. The act supports better integration and cooperation in the health sector.

The Automated Transport – Innovation Labs in Austria provide physical and digital testing infrastructures for automated road transport. They use AI technologies in multiple transport applications. The labs support innovation and testing, funded by the Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation, and Technology (BMK).

Within the AI-supported administration notification project, the possibilities for the automation of administrative processes using AI-supported solutions were examined as part of a feasibility survey. Three different use cases (handwriting recognition, translation, and knowledge management) were analysed on the basis of two Proof of Concepts and one Rapid Prototype.

xPlain-AI is an educational app on AI-based technologies in the medical field and was funded by the Vienna Chamber of Labor (Arbeiterkammer Wien), which began in 2021 as part of the Artificial Intelligence Mission 2030.

Project to integrate the federated secure data infrastructure to link data from hospitals, telemedicine services and Austria's death registry to support the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in research and routine care.

With recent legislative updates, the federal government, states, regional health funds, and the umbrella association of social insurance carriers are now required to establish and operate a national platform for the secondary use of health data. This platform, currently in development, aims to enable coordinated secondary use of health data by relevant public health authorities to inform public health policies.

The Digital Nose project uses AI to detect stress-induced volatile organic compounds from trees and insect pheromones, combined with image data of typical damage patterns, to develop an early warning system for tree diseases, enabling climate-smart forestry and timely reactions to climate stress in forests.

The Copernicus satellites from the European Earth Observation Programme can continuously monitor grassland and its use at the field level with high spatial resolution. The SatGrass project combines remote sensing and weather data into a model, calibrated with regional yield measurements and quality assessments, to analyse vegetation dynamics.

The Climate Change Cockpit provides a centralised platform for environmental data in Austria’s tourism sector. It consolidates information from multiple sources to give a comprehensive overview of environmental conditions and trends. The initiative helps tourism organisations make better decisions and plan strategically to address climate-related challenges.

Austria has published its first national data strategy in October 2024 (Federal Chancellery of Austria, 2024).

The Data Intelligence Offensive (DIO) aims to advance and promote business models for data exchange and monetisation, adhering to the highest ethical and legal standards.

The Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC) is a collaboration of several Austrian universities that provides supercomputer resources and technical support to their users. The current flagship systems of the VSC family are VSC-4 and VSC-5, currently the fastest supercomputers in Austria. Both systems are powering science and research at the leading academic institutions in Austria and fulfil the demand for high computing power in the areas such as physics, chemistry, meteorology and life sciences.

On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and funded by the European Union under the Development and Resilience Plan (2020-2026), the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) are implementing the Quan-tum Austria Funding Initiative. Part of the funding is provided for research infrastructure in the fields of next generation HPC, quantum computing as well as their interconnection.

The AI for Mobility Technologies funding initiative supports the development of AI-driven solutions for sustainable mobility. It focuses on projects that help avoid, shift, and reduce environmental impact in transport. The programme encourages innovation that contributes to the mobility transition in line with national climate and environmental goals.

Schoolpackage AI is an Austrian government initiative aimed at enhancing AI knowledge in primary and secondary education. It targets both teachers and students, promoting the use of AI tools, including generative AI, through pilot programmes in selected schools.