A Coruña
ALLOCATE - Accelerating Local Leadership by Open Computing and AI for Technological Empowerment
ALLOCATE pilots an innovative model for enabling local SMEs to take advantage of the opportunities provided by AI for developing new solutions to local urban development challenges. The project will deploy public AI infrastructure and create a Local Computing Community (LCC), in which public institutions, businesses and academia co-develop AI solutions for urban services aligned with green and ethical principles. The project will engage SMEs in developing and testing AI-based solutions to urban challenges in the fields of mobility, waste and incident response. These measures will be supported by training and an auditing methodology for energy consumption and regulatory compliance across the AI lifecycle.
Our main challenges...
Limited SME access to AI infrastructure: high computing costs and dependence on cloud providers prevent SMEs from experimenting with AI. Most lack access to affordable, local infrastructure to develop, test and scale AI solutions.
Complex legal and regulatory frameworks: new rules like the EU AI Act are essential but difficult to follow. SMEs often lack the legal and technical know-how to develop AI solutions that meet ethical and regulatory standards.
High environmental impact of AI models: AI development can be energy-intensive. Most SMEs lack tools to measure or reduce energy use and emissions across the AI lifecycle, making sustainability a challenge in practice.
and proposed solutions
CONNECTION: The Local Computing Community connects companies, researchers and public services to collaborate, build trust and test AI solutions together in real urban contexts.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Allocate will deploy public AI infrastructure, allowing local businesses to access computing systems and urban data, thus reducing costs and technical barriers for SMEs to use and test AI-based solutions.
SKILLS: Four training programmes in green and ethical AI will be offered to professionals and public workers. These courses will boost local talent with the skills needed to create responsible, sustainable and socially valuable AI technologies.
Key figures
Milestones
Three urban AI challenges will be selected through analysis, co-design and green criteria
Start of a local AI community with SMEs, researchers and city departments
Installation of shared computing infrastructure and an urban data platform at the facilities
Call launched locally, proposals evaluated, and three AI use case winners selected
Real-life testing of the three use cases proposed (in the field of cycling, waste & citizen incidents)
