GPAI – Review after 3 years

A little more than three years ago, in the summer of 2020, I received a surprising call from the German Federal Ministry of Economics.

I was asked if I would like to become one of the two German experts on the topic of innovation and commercialization of artificial intelligence in the newly founded Global Partnership on AI.

The Global Partnership on AI, or GPAI for short, was founded at the time as a G7 initiative by France and Canada. As a founding member, Germany was allowed to send two experts to each of the four working areas that GPAI was to address.

I accepted immediately, of course. In the area of innovation and commercialization, we quickly agreed to tackle the topic of “adoption of AI in small and medium-sized enterprises.” This was and is a great challenge for all countries involved.

I have been active as co-lead for this topic since that time. From the beginning, we decided not to just produce paper, but a concrete solution.

The result is a portal that supports companies in setting up and expanding their AI activities. Companies can use an assessment to check their AI maturity. Most importantly, the portal allows for a targeted search for AI partners and solutions that can help companies in their industry, in their region. In particular, the collaboration between companies and AI startups can be specifically promoted in this way.

This portal is available to all member countries and has already been implemented by Singapore, for example, where companies can actively use it. Other countries are in the implementation phase.

GPAI has now grown to 29 member countries. It is therefore time to take stock and discuss future priorities.

I am therefore very pleased to be able to participate in a strategy workshop in Montreal next week, where representatives of the member countries and selected experts will discuss how we can make even better use of GPAI as an organization and the experts involved in it. Special focus will be on the topics of Generative AI and Climate Change

Just recently, at their meeting in Japan, the G7 leaders called for an international discussion of the topic of generative AI and its regulation, as well as the necessary standards, and explicitly assigned GPAI an active role in this process.

I have long believed that we need more collaboration on the topic of artificial intelligence, whether locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.

So my activities at GPAI also complement each other well with the KI-Allianz Baden-Württemberg, of which I have recently become managing director. Here, too, regions and partners in Baden-Württemberg are joining forces to jointly drive forward the adoption and commercialization of AI.

I think we need many more such collaborations, which are not always easy, but if they are actively supported by the various partners, can make a big contribution to successfully advancing this important topic.