As a source of challenges and opportunities for research, of social enthusiasm or rejection, the development of digital technology and AI represents a major challenge in terms of responsibility and sustainability. Laboratories and research teams in the Hauts-de-France region have joined forces to ensure that AI-related technologies become acceptable and useful to society, while being sustainable in terms of resources and use.
Hauts-de-France: Digital technology and artificial intelligence at the service of human beings
The Hauts-de-France region has leading-edge research units in the field of AI: the Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens (CRIL), the Centre de Recherche en Informatique, Signal et Automatique de Lille (CRIStAL), the Inria centre at the University of Lille (in partnership with the CRIStAL and Painlevé laboratories through their joint project teams), the Paul Painlevé laboratory, the Modelling, Information and Systems laboratory (UPJV), the Laboratoire Amiénois de Mathématique Fondamentale et Appliquée, the LISIC (ULCO), the LAMIH (Valenciennes), the Heudiasyc (UTC), the IMT-Lille Douai and the IEMN in Lille.
Explicability of AI, structuring of research, interdisciplinary research, links between research and industry, training in AI professions: this is the fivefold mission set by the humAIn Regional Alliance, supported by Centrale Lille, CNRS, IMT Lille Douai, the Inria centre at the University of Lille, the University of Artois, the University of Lille and ULCO, UPJV and UPHF, with the participation of Amiens Cluster, CCI Hauts-de-France, Entreprises et Cités, Eurasanté and EuraTechnologies, and with the support of Amiens Métropole, I-Site ULNE, Métropole Européenne de Lille and the Hauts-de-France Region. In particular, humAIn is supporting the MAIA interdisciplinary project (mastering the uses of AI): with a budget of €11 million over 10 years, it aims to study, develop and deploy the strong interactions that exist between AI and three key application areas of the A2U alliance: health (UPJV), chemistry, materials and energy (UPJV / Université d’Artois) and environment/sea (ULCO), as well as the economic, sociological, ethical and legal aspects. MAIA brings together 19 laboratories and a wide network of socio-economic players, and is based on three strands (research, training, development), as well as dealing with cross-disciplinary aspects: science with and for society, open science, internationalisation and building shared bodies of knowledge.
The interdisciplinary CornelIA project (2021-2027), which has been set up in conjunction with the humAIn Alliance, is part of the national AI network. Its aim is to bring together the academic strengths in AI research in the Hauts-de-France region in order to build original solutions in the fields of responsible AI, sustainable AI and human-centred AI. The project consortium offers a rare complementarity (in the same place) of AI skills: development of AI through symbolic, digital and/or hybrid approaches; consideration of the explicability and acceptability of AI through the prism of hard, human and social sciences.
CornelIA is structured into 4 Working Packages (theoretical and scientific foundations of AI; embedded intelligence and societal issues; multidisciplinary links and applications; socio-economic impact, mediation and creation of an AI skills cluster) and is supported by 6 platforms: Silecs, a merger of the FIT (Equipex) and Grid5000 facilities, national infrastructures of which Lille is a node; Robotex, part of a national network of excellence of robotics platforms of which the Lille Pretil platform is a component; PIRVI, a virtual reality facility, a CRIStAL skills unit; the CRIL computing cluster (University of Artois) and the Calculo computing cluster (ULCO), both part of the Infranum infrastructure; and Next2Teralab at the IMT, a platform labelled ‘Silver i-space’ by the BDVA (Big Data Value Association). CornelIA’s most recent call for projects, launched on 14 October 2024 and closed on 31 December 2024, accepted proposals for post-doctoral contracts (co-supervised by two academic scientists belonging to laboratories that are geographically or thematically distant), engineering projects (based on an AI technical skills unit shared between CornelIA member institutions and their partners) and simple expressions of interest in keeping with the spirit of CornelIA’s activities.
For its part, the Cité de l’IA is mobilising the entire AI ecosystem to help businesses demystify and take ownership of the subject of AI, by making it accessible to managers and their staff. And let’s not forget the Serre Numérique in Valenciennes: spread over 17,000 m², including 3,000 m² dedicated to businesses, it houses 3 schools per sector and has already supported 24 start-ups through its 4 programmes (acceleration, digital transformation, R&D and financing). All these strengths make the Hauts-de-France region a pioneer in this field.
Originally published in ©Parlementaires de France Magazine, now ©Research Innov France.
