Today’s second day of the AI & Big Data Congress pointed to the growth in capabilities which quantum computing will bring to artificial intelligence systems as one of the most promising technology trends over the next five years since they will exponentially increase the speed of data processing.
“During the congress, and especially today, we have seen examples of analytical AI and generative AI applied to many fields, including educational applications, Earth observation, culture, audiovisual content generation and much more, where the impact is real and significantly increases the productivity of companies that use it,” said Marco Orellana, manager of the Centre of Innovation for Data Tech and Artificial Intelligence (CIDAI), at the tenth anniversary of the congress where the first steps in integrating quantum computing with artificial intelligence have also been presented.
On the second day of the congress on artificial intelligence and big data in the business sector, organised by the CIDAI and coordinated by the Eurecat technology centre as part of the Catalan government’s Catalonia.AI strategy, technology companies unveiled the software they are developing to work with this innovative technology which has huge growth potential to ramp up the efficiency of artificial intelligence and engender new business opportunities.
This is the case of GMV, which applies quantum AI in Earth observation to identify photovoltaic plants in satellite images and for short-term prediction of wind speed and direction in areas of interest. Multiverse Computing shared the use of its products in sectors such as finance, energy, defence and manufacturing with solutions implemented in tensor networks while Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech outlined how AI helps to optimise quantum computing.
Artificial intelligence technologies to support corporate decision-making
Data and artificial intelligence technology experts have also addressed the opportunities and challenges of generative artificial intelligence, multimodal models and solutions to make “black box” AI models more explainable, i.e. to help understand the outputs yielded.
These trends have included the opportunities of actionable artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems which enable autonomous decision-making and task execution since, as pointed out by Xavier Domingo, director of the Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit at Eurecat, their purpose is to “find the optimal sequence of actions to be performed for a common goal, rewarding good decisions and penalising poor ones.”
The congress showcased the application of these and other technologies in a number of fields including a project to enhance the operation of drinking water networks run by the CETAQUA water technology centre; an initiative by the Catalan Government’s Centre for Telecommunications and Information Technologies (CTTI) to automate registration procedures using forms applied in the wine industry with a voice assistant, and a solution by the Blanes Advanced Studies Centre (CEAB-CSIC) for implementing a mosquito monitoring and control system.
Several case studies have also been explored in which artificial intelligence supports decision-making in businesses and institutions by fully leveraging the value of the data they have to hand.
In culture, the inclusion of artificial intelligence and facial recognition has made it possible to catalogue more than 47,000 photographs from the Teatre Lliure archive and also help the publishing industry to identify new bestsellers to bring out and authors to improve their writing. In education, it has been shown how the application of generative artificial intelligence can support the creation of multimedia content; in finance, how it can assist with spotting fraud in digital transactions, and in industry, how it can be used to enhance safety in the workplace and logistics.
Other tools presented included DocSynth from the Computer Vision Center at the Autonomous University of Barcelona for generating high-quality documents and the application developed by Eurecat featuring advanced innovation techniques such as dynamic models of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures to develop assistants from proprietary document databases.
Recognition for outstanding Catalan businesses in using AI
This year on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the AI & Big Data Congress has recognised the role of Verbio, Mango, Mediktor and the AIS Group, four Catalan businesses operating in various fields, which have stood out for their use of artificial intelligence technologies over the last ten years.
The awards for these initiatives were picked up by Carles Laparra, Chief Delivery Officer at Verbio; Pol Oliva, Data and Advanced Analytics Director at Mango; Eusebi Ocaña, Head of Sales at Mediktor, and David Fernández, Sales Director at the AIS Group.
The lifetime scientific achievements of Ramón López de Mántaras, emeritus professor of the CSIC at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) which he founded and directed, have also been recognised.
