The meeting, held at INESC TEC’s headquarters in Porto, brought together more than 30 participants to explore three years of work under the European project.
Three years after launching – and just a few weeks before the official conclusion – the A-IQ Ready project held the final general meeting at INESC TEC, in an event that served to highlight the results achieved. With technological advances ranging from rescue scenarios to automotive monitoring and industrial automation, Nuno Paulino, INESC TEC researcher and member of the project, highlighted the “creation of a technological foundation to transition into advanced demonstration phases”.
Among the “substantial results” achieved by the nearly 50 A-IQ Ready partners are “the integration and testing of a quantum sensor in automotive engines for condition monitoring and control, the development of an embedded system for driver state monitoring in vehicle cabins, and solutions for the automation of industrial vehicles in both small-scale (factories) and large-scale (construction sites) environments”.
However, it is in “computing platforms where customised hardware enables more efficient execution of Artificial Intelligence models” that INESC TEC’s main contribution to the project lies. Through hardware methods and architectures geared towards the efficient execution of AI inference models, the institution advanced “techniques for transforming and mapping AI models, systematic support for customised RISC-V extensions, and the creation of integrated co-simulation workflows between conventional processors and specialised hardware”.
The “strong cooperation” with key partners also made it possible to demonstrate the “various computing technologies” developed by INESC TEC throughout the project. The impact of these technologies is expected to translate, for example, into “systems that, by leveraging edge AI, will be capable of operating autonomously in complex and distributed scenarios”.
The impact goes even further; there are also breakthroughs across different domains, e.g., quantum sensors, intelligent automation systems in industrial environments, and unmanned ground vehicles equipped with AI for search and rescue scenarios. Regarding digital hardware and computer architectures, “relevant progress” was also achieved in “methodologies for designing heterogeneous architectures and techniques that maximise their potential – through more efficient mechanisms for offloading AI models to specialised hardware”.
After his participation in this project, Nuno Paulino believes that INESC TEC has been able to “significantly boost international visibility, consolidate strategic partnerships with European technology leaders and deepen internal expertise”. Another key aspect highlighted by the researcher relates to “talent attraction and development”, as the project created conditions for the continuity and expansion of lines of work “through new proposals, collaborations and doctoral programmes”.
The researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC
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