Working together for trustworthy artificial intelligence

In spring 2024, the new "Alps" supercomputer at ETH Zurich's national high-performance computing center CSCS in Lugano will go into operation. With over 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) of the latest generation, it is one of the world's most powerful computers for applications in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Thanks to access to this computer, science in Switzerland can keep pace with the world's largest tech companies in terms of computing power.

Using the technological advantage for Switzerland's digital sovereignty

This gives Switzerland a major competitive advantage internationally. This is because supercomputing infrastructure is in short supply worldwide due to the rapid development of generative AI and - where available - is mostly owned by a few large companies. "We want to exploit this locational advantage with the joint initiative and make the expertise in the field of artificial intelligence available in Switzerland accessible to society as a whole," explains Christan Wolfrum, ETH Vice President for Research. "Science must take on the pioneering role in such a forward-looking field and not leave it to a few multinational technology companies. This is the only way we can safeguard Switzerland's freedom of research and digital sovereignty."

Transparency and "open source"

The aim of the initiative is to develop and train new so-called large language models (LLM). These should be transparent, deliver comprehensible results and ensure compliance with legal, ethical and scientific requirements. "Unlike the large language models that are publicly available today, the initiative focuses entirely on transparency and 'open source'. Everyone must be able to understand how and on which data the models were trained and how they arrived at their results," emphasizes Jan Hesthaven, Provost and Academic Vice President of EPFL.

To develop such models, the "Swiss AI" initiative will use ten million so-called "GPU hours" on the new "Alps" computer over the next twelve months - this corresponds to the computing power of a single graphics processor running under full load for over 1100 years. Switzerland is the first country in the world to operate a research infrastructure on the latest NVIDIA Grace Hopper superchip.

"Swiss AI" initiative has already been launched

These computing capacities will be used to develop new, industry-specific AI base models. These can be used in different areas, for example in robotics, medicine, climate science or diagnostics. In addition, the initiative is also investigating fundamental questions relating to the development and use of LLM models: What will the future interaction between humans and AI look like? What is the appropriate ethical framework? How do we deal with security and data protection? What new approaches can be used to scale models and make them more energy-efficient?

AI for industry and public administration

The "Swiss AI" initiative has also set itself the goal of bringing together science, industry and politics in order to jointly shape and promote the development and use of artificial intelligence in Switzerland. Already established collaborations with companies, hospitals and the public sector will be further expanded. Swisscom CTO Gerd Niehage comments: "We welcome the "Swiss AI" initiative. As Swisscom, we are convinced that this will be an important building block for Switzerland. The digital transformation will be driven forward and the necessary skills will be created so that our country can play a significant role in the field of generative artificial intelligence. AI solutions such as those of the "Swiss AI" initiative are an important element of innovative, digital solutions for Swisscom that our customers can trust."

The software infrastructure available in Switzerland, the expertise built up and the basic models developed should be passed on as openly and directly as possible to society and industry. In order to remain competitive, SMEs will also be increasingly reliant on the use of artificial intelligence in the future. Like the public sector, they will be able to benefit directly from the open "Swiss AI" initiative. The Swiss AI initiative is also establishing a program to support start-ups in the field of AI.

Networking of researchers from all over Switzerland

ETH Zurich and EPFL are conducting world-class interdisciplinary AI research with their respective AI centers, which will work closely together in the future, together with the Swiss Data Science Center. The initiative aims to pool the expertise of around a dozen Swiss universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions. In recent months, a total of over 75 professors from all over Switzerland have been recruited for the initiative. In addition, international researchers are also invited to work together on the development of multilingual and cross-border open source LLM. ETH Zurich and EPFL are both already part of the European AI excellence network ELLIS, which includes around 40 AI hotspots in Europe.

Source: ETH News