A vast collaborative project on hybrid Artificial Intelligence with 35 million euros over five years and carried by the CNRS subsidiary in Singapore will begin in late 2021.

The main objective of the DesCartes program, which began construction in January 2020 under the direction of Francisco Chinesta, is dedicated to decision-making in "urban critical systems," one of the many research challenges related to the "smart city." "The Singaporean CREATE hub did not have a project on this theme. With DesCartes, the CNRS is making a good place for itself on the campus while meeting the needs identified by Singapore to implement its smart city policy by 2030, via its national AI strategy launched in 2019, supported in particular by the NRF's AISG program," Dominique Baillargeat explains. DesCartes also allows to join the French national Artificial Intelligence plan while four interdisciplinary institutes in artificial intelligence (3IA) have been created and could participate. "A way to extend the research work undertaken in these institutes and to expand a component in Singapore. The CNRS has made AI and its applications one of its research areas, particularly in the context of international partnerships," he adds. But the general context is also largely favorable. The two countries have recently started a strong partnership around AI research by focusing on four research areas: data and its applications, verifiable and explainable AI, natural language processing, and the interaction between AI and human-computer interaction.

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