Alma Mater Europaea University, as the initiator of the strategic international project SI-AAI-RHI (Slovenian Applied AI Research & Innovation Hub), leads the Slovenian application for the Teaming for Excellence call funded by the European Union. The project aims to establish a Slovenian center of excellence for the development of ethical, inclusive, and sustainably oriented artificial intelligence of the future.
The initiative includes 10 leading European institutions, among them CERN, Technical University of Munich, TU Delft, JAMK Finnish Innovation Center and others. The project directly complements the development of a high-performance supercomputing center on Maribor Island, worth 150 million euros, which by 2027 will become a key infrastructure for running advanced AI models and processing large volumes of data.
SI-AAI-RHI is based on four pillars:
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Governance and ethics of artificial intelligence
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Education and digital skills
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Innovation hub for collaboration between public and private sectors
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Development of breakthrough technologies and co-creating the future
The project has received broad support from European and industry partners, including strategic support from NVIDIA for the Eastern Europe region and also support from the Slovenian state.
We believe that Slovenia can become an important European reference point for the development of human-centered and public good-oriented artificial intelligence with this initiative.
"We are proud that the idea originates from our digital technology study programs, especially the international doctoral program
Applied Artificial Intelligence
, which we develop with European partners," said Associate Professor Dr. Matej Mertik, head of the Web and Digital Technologies department at Alma Mater Europaea University and architect of the initiative.
The results of the first phase of the call will be known at the end of July 2025. In the second phase, the consortium will continue shaping the innovation campus, developing programs for future generations of researchers, and actively involving industry and the local environment.
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