Interview: Spanish AI director welcomes Spain-China scientific cooperation agreement

BARCELONA, Spain, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Coinciding with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's visit to China last week, the two countries signed an agreement to boost scientific cooperation, a move welcomed by Spain's scientific community, including a top AI researcher, who told Xinhua on Monday that collaboration is essential for research.

"Today, science and technology is developed in large teams and this can be seen by the fact that big technology companies have huge teams of engineers and researchers to meet the challenges they face. It's clear that either research is collaborative or there is none," said Carles Sierra, head of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

The AI institute director stressed that scientific collaboration "has to be common" and "free-flowing" and that "it's no longer possible to think that a single person can revolutionize the world with their ideas."

Spain's Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Science and Technology of China to carry out joint research, as well as enabling the participation of scientific and technical staff from both countries in high-impact national research projects.

"Not long ago we were visited by a delegation from the Chinese Academy of Sciences about issues of artificial intelligence applied to education, and we shared ideas and looked into the possibility of collaborating in the future, it was all very free-flowing, as it also is between researchers in congresses," Sierra added.

The AI research director also pointed out the importance of welcoming students from other countries and that increasingly more scientists and researchers have the option of going abroad to find work.

"There are a lot of students from China who go abroad to train and many who come back again, and lately there are many more Western researchers who are going to pursue a career in China and who are being hired by Chinese universities, so I think the flow back and forth is working well," he said.

In fact, Sierra pointed to his own field of Artificial Intelligence as ideal for collaboration because the benefits of "artificial intelligence as an extension of our capabilities" and "as a kind of friend who assists us in doing what we've always done but doing it a little better" are universal.

Referring to the concerns about the adoption of AI, Sierra pointed out that "AI automates cognitive processes and that's new for many people" and that this lack of familiarity "causes concerns about machines taking over our cognitive processes and thereby substituting us."

The institute director also suggested that where Spain is concerned AI could be of particular help with the country's "environmental challenges, such as the recent drought or dealing with the impact of climate change, while energy is also a challenge."

Meanwhile, on Tuesday last week, the Spanish government announced that it would allocate nearly 15 million euros (16.69 million U.S. dollars) to grants for "International Collaboration Projects", which will go towards financing Spanish participation in some 77 international research projects and activities.