KIAM: Centre of Excellence AI in the Working World of SMEs in OstWestfalenLippe

The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change the working world of tomorrow: AI systems support, improve, take on and create new fields of work. The potentials and risks of AI are largely determined by the expertise and qualifications of the people involved. This is especially true for medium-sized industrial companies. AI offers great potentialforsmallandmedium-sized enterprises (SMEs) along the entire value chain. The identification of concrete application opportunities as well as the design of AI-based solutions poses numerous challenges for SMEs, such as a lack of qualified specialists or unclear organisational and technological requirements.

Therefore, the aim of the joint project KIAM is the establishment of the regional competence centre “AI in the working world of the industrial middle class” to establish a holistically oriented AI work research. Thereby, the complex challenges and potentials of AI on the levels of technology, organisation, and working people are fully addressed. It builds on existing experiences and research results in the areas of Work 4.0, AI- based innovations and technology transfer, especially in the context of the excellence cluster it’s OWL. The centre of excellence provides a central access point for demand- oriented research and application of AI in the context of industrial work — beyond the borders of OWL.