Ramon Llull, a Catalan philosopher who lived in the 14th century, invented a method of knowledge consisting of a complex mechanism of geometric shapes and symbols that combine letters and concepts, known as the ““Ars combinatoria”, becoming a new branch of learning with universal aspirations. This fact caused “ars combinatoria” to become a precursor of logic and computer science and, consequently, Ramón Llull became the father of computer science.
It was not until 1956 when, by the hand of a group of scientists at the Artificial Intelligence Summer School at Dartmouth College (USA), the concept of artificial intelligence was established, imagining what this new discipline would be, emerging as the “empirical science that studies the mechanisms for intelligent actions”.
In Catalonia, in 1981, Dr. Ramon López de Mántaras presented the first thesis on AI entitled “Learning algorithms in shape recognition: Application to robotics“. From here, a legacy began that has turned Catalonia into a powerful AI hub with a first-rate international projection.
Since then, Catalonia has been a great exporter of talent in all areas of AI, with personalities who have become great references in this field and who have become real ambassadors of Catalan research in the world.
Within the framework of the current Catalan Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Catalonia.AI), through the Artificial Intelligence Research Alliance in Catalonia (AIRA), a cooperative workspace has been established to promote and project all scientific research and talent at an international level.
Therefore, one of the alliance’s first priorities was to promote the candidacy for the creation of the ELLIS Barcelona Unit and, in this way, integrate Catalonia into the current European network of excellence in basic research in artificial intelligence; the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS).
ELLIS is an initiative created in 2018, as the result of a movement by the European scientific community, with the aim of turning Europe into a pioneering region and strengthening excellence and technological sovereignty in a discipline as strategic as AI.
ELLIS is defined as a pan-European network of excellence in fundamental research in artificial intelligence made up of a total of 39 Units with the mission of advancing the state of the art, generating technological innovation and creating a positive social and economic impact.
This past March, the new ELLIS Barcelona unit became a reality; being one of the four new ELLIS units approved this 2023, a fact that represents an endorsement of the high quality and impact of the research carried out in Catalonia in the field of AI.
With a research team made up of 21 researchers, the ELLIS Barcelona Unit will connect the scientific community of five universities and five research centers of the Catalan knowledge system: the University of Barcelona (UB), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), the Computer Vision Center (CVC), the Industrial Robotics and Informatics Institute (IRI/CSIC-UPC), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC–CNS), the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC) and the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI-UPC).
From Catalonia, the new unit will promote interdisciplinary and transversal research in AI, will foster strong links with the industry and train the next generation of outstanding talent in this field. His scope of work will focus on fundamental research in machine learning and related fields, such as vision, robotics and natural language processing.
The Catalan unit will be led by Carme Torras, PhD in Computer Science and head of the Perception and Manipulation research group at the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Computer Science (CSIC-UPC). Mathematician specializing in robotics and artificial intelligence, Dr. Torras is the recipient of the 2020 National Research Award in recognition of her research on AI and healthcare robotics. The co-direction of the ELLIS Barcelona unit will be carried out by the associate director of the CVC and professor at the UAB, Dimosthenis Karatzas. In Carme Torras’ opinion, “The ELLIS network is a privileged ecosystem for developing AI in an ethically beneficial way for humanity. The new ELLIS Barcelona unit is looking forward to joining forces and contributing to this goal”.
