NEC

NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilise the company’s experience and global resources, NEC’s advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. The organization brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society.

NEC Europe was founded in 1995 as a subsidiary of NEC Corporation and holds itself 15 subsidiary organizations all over Europe, which all build upon NECs heritage and reputation for innovation and quality by providing its expertise, solutions and services to a broad range of customers, from telecom operators to enterprises and the public sector.

 

Principal Investigator

Dr. Claudio Soriente has received his PhD in Networked Systems from University of California at Irvine (USA) in 2009. Between 2009 and 2012, he was a Juan de la Cierva fellow at Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain). From 2012 until 2015, he was an Oberassistent in the Institute of Information Security of ETH Zurich (Switzerland). In 2015, he moved to Telefonica Research as a researcher. He is currently a principal researcher in the security group of NEC Laboratories Europe. His research interests include applied cryptography, privacy and system security.

How did you started/joined/enrolled SPATIAL?

I was involved in SPATIAL from the ideation and proposal preparation phase. The consortium as a whole felt the need to bring trustworthiness to AI. Artificial Intelligence promises a host of opportunities but requires careful handling and mechanisms to ensure a lawful, ethical, and robust AI.

What are your expectations in a project of this nature?

SPATIAL is going to tackle the problem of trustworthiness in AI from different angles. Technology for privacy-preserving AI is one of the aspects NEC is working on and we plan to use our expertise throughout the project. Anyway, one project goal that I would like to highlight is the goal of facilitating and promoting AI-related skills and education.

What can the research community expect from SPATIAL?

SPATIAL will proved tangible results for the research community and beyond. Privacy-preserving technology, verification tools and system solutions are just some of the contributions that the project will bring to the scientific community. Beyond that, I expect SPATIAL to influence regulation, governance and standardisation processes and to provide educational modules to promote trustworthy AI.

Where do you see SPATIAL results in 10 years?

SPATIAL will have an impact on the future of trustworthy AI. The project will hopefully mark the path for future European efforts in this scope and SPATIAL results will serve as a reference for both researchers and practitioners.