One teaches machines how to learn, the other teaches machines how to read: Up to now, the main connection between renowned computer scientist Prof. Sepp Hochreiter and the Viennese software company Anyline has been the fact that they both are driving advances in artificial intelligence (AI) in Austria and are experiencing a worldwide impact. Starting in October, they will jointly conduct research at the JKU.

Jointly funded by Anyline and JKU, 3-year doctoral program will focus on research to develop new techniques for so-called "few shot learning". The goal is for computers to learn faster and easier, meaning "learn to learn" and use much smaller datasets in their neural networks.

Prof. Hochreiter remarked: "When it comes to AI research, we are in the midst of great change. In order to keep pace internationally, Europe needs to launch ambitious projects right now. Anyline is one of Austria's leading technology companies and the prospect of collaboration is exciting, allowing us to open up numerous new fields of research."

Anyline co-founder, Daniel Albertini, considers combining the JKU's research in machine learning with his company's real-world cases in the field of mobile scanning is an opportunity to: "… establish Austria as a center of innovation and research in artificial intelligence and have a global reach."

Supported by a € 500,000 grant from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), Anyline will invest the funds in its development work to support AI technology in a so-called trainer platform, designed to fundamentally reduce the time needed to develop new scan solutions, mainly from several weeks to just a few hours.

Dr. Klaus Pseiner, Managing Director of Austrian Research Promotion Agency, added, "Artificial intelligence has enormous potential and offers companies of all sizes and industries many opportunities, solutions and markets. When high quality research partnerships and platforms are created, we can truly see research accomplishments and potential."