Editorial

Editorial by the Director

The Institut 3IA Côte d'Azur, launched in September 2019 and coordinated by Université Côte d'Azur, is dedicated to the applications of Artificial intelligence (AI) to health and for smart territories. After two years of existence, a great dynamic is taking place around AI on Côte d'Azur, and the Institute is positioning itself as a tool for its ecosystem in which it plays a driving role, bringing together business, research and training institutes and public players.

The 3IA Côte d'Azur is one of the 4 Interdisciplinary Institutes of Artificial Intelligence labeled in France in April 2019. The institute is carried by six key academic actors of AI in the region: Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Inria, Inserm, Eurecom and Skema. The project is also supported by Mines ParisTech, Nice University Hospital, INRAE, local authorities and more than 100 companies and startups. The institute has a total budget of more than 50 million euros for the period 2019-2023.

These first two years of exercise of the Institute have already been crowned with great achievements in structuring the AI ecosystem, in research (more than 500 scientific publications), in innovation (more than 10 million Euros invested by local companies in research collaborations) and education (+50% of people trained in AI, with the launch of new initial and continuing training programs). This first report allows both to make a progress review on the deployment of this new model of interaction between academic research, companies and society, and to project the action of the institute in a longer term.

More importantly, the Institute has established itself as a federating player and a local entry point for transforming AI technological innovation emerging from research laboratories into use cases for companies and local authorities, while supporting all citizens to train or acculturate to these new technologies. The Institut 3IA Côte d'Azur is also deeply involved, in close collaboration with the other 3IA institutes, in the French AI strategy "AI for Humanity", for which a new phase1 with 1.5 B€ has been recently announced, and the development of the image of the French research in AI at the international level.

On the strength of this excellent collective dynamic on the Côte d'Azur and at the national level, the Institute is now in full capacity to carry out its research, innovation and training missions, and can project itself actively for the years to come.

Pr. Charles Bouveyron Director of 3IA Côte d'Azur

1 https://www.gouvernement.fr/investissements-d-avenir-nouvelle-phase-de-la-strategie-nationale-d-intelligence-artificielle-le