Pitches: Economic
Kees Kerstens (Municipality of Breda), Edwin Kuipers (Dutch AI Factory) and others
Multiple Rooms
Three pitches on specific AI applications and challenges.
Local: Bredata goes AI: how does the city harness the economic opportunities of AI?
Breda does not digitalise for digitalisation's sake. The Bredata programme aims to deploy digitalisation as an earning opportunity for Breda's innovative business community, as a research opportunity for educational institutions — and as a contribution to quality of life in the city. That requires courage: daring to experiment, fail and learn.
Bredata brings partners together in a digital ecosystem and promotes innovation as a digital pioneer, with a focus on societal challenges.
The next step is to translate those local learning experiences into structural economic opportunities in the field of AI: for companies that want to innovate in Breda, for startups using the city as a testing environment, and for a business climate that remains attractive in the future.
National: Build ultrafast models from 2027 in Groningen's AI Factory
The most important AI innovations still come from the United States and China. This makes Europe — and therefore the Netherlands — too dependent on others. The AI factory in Groningen is the answer: an innovation hub where entrepreneurs, researchers and governments build the AI applications of tomorrow together. If everything goes according to plan, the expertise centre will start in mid-2026 and the supercomputer will be running at full capacity in 2027. Not as an abstract tech project, but as an economic engine for a region reinventing itself — and as a building block for a digitally sovereign Europe.
European: further information to follow.