At the SALZ Festival in Salzburg, the AI Factory Austria AI:AT demonstrated what is important in the next phase of AI development: bringing Europe’s strengths in research, infrastructure, domain knowledge and industry closer together and translating them more quickly into application and value creation.
Karl Kugler, Head of AI Factory Austria AI:AT, positioned the AI Factory as a connecting platform along the entire value chain.
Panelists – Andreas Kugi (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology/TU Vienna), Berthold Baurek-Karlic (Venionaire Capital AG), Isabella Hermann-Schön (EIT Manufacturing), Michael Eder (Voestalpine), Karl Kugler (AI Factory Austria AI:AT)
“The AI Factory is part of this European courage and this European self-discovery,” said Karl Kugler on the panel. For him, it is clear that Europe’s competitiveness in the age of AI will not only be determined by technological excellence, but also by the ability to effectively bring together skills, infrastructures and players. “We must generate and retain added value in Europe.”
This is precisely where the AI Factory Austria AI:AT comes in. As Austria’s national AI Factory as part of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, it combines access to European AI infrastructure with expertise, application support and ecosystem work for start-ups, SMEs, research and industry. AI:AT is supported by an Austria-wide consortium under the joint leadership of AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and Advanced Computing Austria (ACA).
Kugler made it clear in Salzburg that AI:AT deliberately wants to be more than just an infrastructure project: “It’s not just about providing hardware, but also about making this hardware usable for start-ups and SMEs.” From the perspective of AI Factory Austria AI:AT, this also includes questions of application maturity, business models, trustworthy use and European connectivity.
AI:AT’s mission is therefore clear: the AI Factory sees itself as a bridge between compute, research, innovation and industrial implementation. Or, as Kugler put it: “We have all the pieces of the puzzle that we need.” The key now is to better combine these existing strengths and make them more effective together.
The initial presentation by Andreas Kugi, Scientific Director of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, also showed just how great this potential is. He described the current development of artificial intelligence as a profound industrial change: “I would compare what is currently happening in industry to the introduction of electricity.” Kugi sees a strategic opportunity for Europe in the interplay between agentic AI, physical AI, data ecosystems and engineering expertise.
The other panel contributions also emphasized that this requires strong interaction: Michael Eder referred to the importance of data, organization and speed of implementation in industrial processes. Isabella Herrmann-Schön emphasized the importance of domain expertise and viable use cases for marketable innovation. Berthold Baurek-Karlic pleaded for more European self-confidence, less fragmentation and better framework conditions for innovation and scaling.
For AI Factory Austria AI:AT, this results in a clear mission: network, empower, accelerate. Kugler put it in a nutshell in Salzburg: “It’s no longer about pitting Salzburg against Tyrol or Austria against Germany or France, but about how we can become competitive as Europe.”
The appearance at the SALZ Festival thus made visible what the AI Factory Austria AI:AT stands for: for a European approach to AI that does not end with infrastructure, but is aimed at cooperation, implementation and industrial impact. “Together we are simply stronger, we are better and we can make a difference from applied research to money to industry,” says Karl Kugler.
