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Microsoft join for annual AI Research at Leeds event

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We had a great time at our AI Research at Leeds event on 8th July. The day was full of great conversations with fantastic talks from our talented and experienced speakers.

Key take-aways from the event in case you missed it...

  • There is a huge opportunity to harness AI for economic growth, better public services, improved healthcare and more sustainable industries.
  • AI is delivering impact across every discipline and sector at Leeds, from healthcare and business to sustainability and education.
  • The focus is moving from AI ideas to AI adoption, with increasing emphasis on implementation, partnerships and real-world outcomes.
  • Using AI effectively requires more than AI tools alone, disciplinary expertise, business knowledge and real-world context remain essential for asking the right questions and validating outputs.
  • Collaboration between researchers, industry, healthcare, government and communities is key to turning AI research into societal benefit.

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A big thank you goes to our special guest keynote speaker, Microsoft's Ryan Payton, who took us through the newly released Microsoft Discovery, a new end-to-end research platform designed for impact.

We were also delighted to be joined by Nick Plant and Arunangsu Chatterjee who provided the overarching strategic AI steer for the University.

Marc de Kamps shone a light on the AI Research landscape at Leeds and Jodi Gunning took us through the wider funding environment and industry partnerships.

Our afternoon panel session discussed what it takes for AI to deliver real-world impact, with critical insights from first-hand experience across different sectors from Azza Eltraify, Mike Hawking, Freddie Wallace and Andy Scarsbrook.

Fellow academics from across the university also shared their valuable work including Andy Scarsbrook, Mehmet Dogar, Chetan D., Serge Sharoff, Nabi Omidvar, Lijing Ke, Karim Djemame, Peizhi Shi, Payal Ganguly (PhD), Bashar Al-Qaisieh, Richard de Blacquiere-Clarkson, Yanyao Deng and Mark Birkin.