ICECYL and AIR Institute successfully hosted the International Forum on AI for Business in Salamanca

Salamanca hosted on Wednesday, 22 October, the “International Forum: The Application of AI in the Business World”, an event organised by the AIR Institute Technology Centre as part of the Centr@tec programme, promoted by the Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castilla y León (ICECYL).

The forum brought together national and international experts to analyse and debate the impact of artificial intelligence on business development. The session opened with remarks from Augusto Cobos, Director General of ICECYL, who highlighted the institution’s commitment to promoting knowledge transfer through technology centres, “as they play a key role and act as a bridge between universities and companies.”

José Francisco Diego, ICECYL’s Territorial Director in Salamanca, presented the funding opportunities available to start-ups, noting that “there is a basic digitalisation line accessible through a fast and efficient grant.” Meanwhile, Carmen Losada, Chief Operating Officer at AIR Institute, stated: “AIR Institute is a national technology centre participating in the Centr@tec programme to support companies in their digital transformation through various services and events such as the one we have organised today.”

The day was moderated by science communicator Carlos Santana, known as Dot CSV, who delivered the keynote lecture “Beyond the Hype” — an invitation to look past social media buzz and reflect on the speed of AI’s evolution. “AI no longer amazes us as it once did; our expectations are already ahead of what it can become,” he noted.

The forum also featured a talk by Federico Bueno de Mata, Vice-Rector for Knowledge Transfer, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Salamanca, who discussed the legal foundations of artificial intelligence. Likewise, Ana Belén Gil, Co-Director of the DemIA Chair at the University of Salamanca, gave a presentation on strategic AI and new models of territorial development for businesses.

On the international side, the forum included a presentation by Sebastián López, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie researcher, entitled “Autonomous Energy Management through Hierarchical Planning in Learned Latent Spaces.” Latin America was also represented through Professor José Luis Paniagua from the Universidad Autónoma de Cali (Colombia), who delivered a talk titled “How to Understand AI Decisions?”, and Professor Jesús Alfonso López, Academic Coordinator of the AI Specialisation Programme at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente in Cali, who presented “The B-Side of Artificial Intelligence and How to Manage AI Risks in SMEs.”

The round table “New Approaches to AI in the Context of Sustainability” was moderated by Carlos Santana and featured María Jesús Daza, Director of Digital Transformation and Data Governance at Global Exchange, who stressed that “the challenge for SMEs in Spain is their very limited technological component and their lack of awareness that with minimal investment, they can advance towards digitalisation.” Juan Manuel Núñez, Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (Colombia), highlighted “the great potential of hybrid architectures” and emphasised the need for both cloud-based and local data “to prevent failures like the one that recently affected Amazon AWS.” Andy Jaffke, Vice President of Sales at Teradata Iberia, underscored “the importance of viewing sustainability from a global perspective.”

The event concluded with a reflection from Carlos Santana: “Artificial intelligence is a revolution that has arrived very quickly; it opens up a channel of opportunities but also of threats. We are witnessing unprecedented advances, yet it is up to us to respond responsibly.”

The international forum forms part of the Centr@tec Programme for Business Training, Technology Transfer, and R&D&I Support, funded by the Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castilla y León (ICECYL) of the Regional Government of Castilla y León, in collaboration with the NODDO Network of Technology Centres.