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Brazil is back! Science is back! The Brazilian AI for good for all strategy promises significant investments in artificial intelligence

18.09.2024

Brazil is back! Science is back! The Brazilian AI for good for all strategy promises significant investments in artificial intelligence

Brazil published its national plan for artificial intelligence in July 2024, including approximately 4 billion euros’ investments during the years 2024-2028. The aim of the plan is to develop artificial intelligence solutions in Brazil to improve the quality of life, optimize the delivery of public services and promote social inclusion. The ambitious plan focuses on Brazil’s technological autonomy and sovereignty, as well as human centered and ethical approach, social equality and capacitation of the people.

Long live science! 

“Brazil is back! Science is back! Long live science!” Many ministerial speeches ended in these words in the Brazilian National Science, Technology and Innovation Conference (5CNCTI), organized in Brasília from July 30 to August 1, 2024. The conference was the fifth in its series, showing the importance of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for the current government of Brazil, when 14 years had already passed since the previous conference. The conference brought together discussions from more than 200 regional and open STI conferences held in different states since December 2023. The goal was to discuss the needs of the STI sector among broad stakeholders and propose recommendations for a new national STI strategy until 2030. The conference was opened by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and speakers included Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Luciana Santos and other ministers, as well as representatives of the Brazilian academia and industry. There were 5,300 participants in person and 4,000 remotely registered for the event. The new national STI strategy is expected to be completed during 2024.

Brazil has to learn to fly! 

The opening ceremony of the conference culminated in the publication of the first significant result of the preparatory process of the national STI strategy, the "Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Plan 2024-2028 - AI for the good of all ”. This plan was developed through an intensive participatory process, in less than 5 months starting in the beginning of March 2024. In addition to the AI plan, also a proposal of a law on the regulation and governance of AI is under discussion by the senate. 

In the event, the speakers highlighted the goals to increase the technological autonomy and sovereignty of Brazil, and to decrease the dependency on international technologies. President Lula declared that “Brazil has to learn to fly”, referring to the need of Brazil to take a step forward in developing its own technology, including the “Brazilian AI”, which should be also “socially intelligent” as for not causing unemployment, for instance. This socially intelligent and human AI was another recurring topic in the discussions: the Brazilian AI should focus on people, it should be ethical and inclusive, accessible to all. It was recognized that the transforming technologies impact the society profoundly and it can also exclude a big part of society. However, the great potential of AI in addressing social, environmental and economic challenges and in reducing inequalities based on income, gender, ethnicity and knowledge, was also recognized. As a progressive note related to the concerns about AI causing unemployment, it was stated that the solution is not to protect the jobs, but the people, who should be able to develop new jobs, for instance through capacitation. The AI plan was highlighted to benefit the whole society, including the private, public and civil sectors. 

The speakers highlighted also fair cooperation with countries that are willing to work together with Brazil and not only provide ready-made solutions. As part of Brazil’s own global responsibility and science diplomacy actions, it was stated that Brazil would be sharing its future data processing capacity with other countries in the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. 

Major investments in artificial intelligence

According to the plan, the aim is to develop artificial intelligence solutions in Brazil that significantly improve the quality of life of the population, optimize the delivery of public services and promote social inclusion. The plan includes 31 short-term actions with immediate impact in the sectors of health; agriculture; environment; industry, trade and services; education; social development; and public services. The plan includes also the following structural actions: 
•    Infrastructure and artificial intelligence development, including e.g. building a global top 5 high-performance supercomputer and developing language models in Portuguese; 
•    Dissemination, training and capacity building, including e.g. capacitation in all levels of education and public-private partnerships in training; 
•    Artificial intelligence to improve public services, including e.g. creation of a robust ecosystem of public data and capacitation of public officials en AI to optimize decision making; 
•    Artificial intelligence in corporate innovation, including e.g. development of AI solutions for industry to increase productivity, establishment of green data centers and support centers in AI, support for startups and retention of AI talents in Brazilian companies; and 
•    Regulatory processes and AI governance, including e.g. establishment of Brazilian observatory of AI (OBIA), National Centre for Algoritmic Transparency and Reliable AI, and a network of AI specialist in support of Brazil’s participation in international debates and forums. 

In addition, the aim is to promote Brazil’s global leadership in AI and strategic international partnerships. In order to achieve the goals, the plan includes in total approx. 4 billion euros of mainly public investments in by 2028. This budget exceeds the plans for public investments in AI by Germany, France, EU and UK, for instance. 

Cooperation opportunities in AI for Finnish Higher Education and Research Institutes

Considering the national priority and major investments of Brazil in AI in the upcoming years, including in education and science, there is much potential for collaboration also for Finnish Higher Education and Research Institutes in this area. One good example of this is for instance the collaboration between Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology and the Federal University of Ceará on building a Joint Multidisciplinary Training Program for Technical Aspects and Social Impacts of Artificial Intelligence, supported by EDUFI’s TFK programme. These type of iniciatives are definitely well aligned also with Brazil’s national plans. 

If you are cooperating with Brazilian partners in AI or are interested in developing collaborations, contact Johanna to check possibilities for joint actions: johanna.kivimaki@gov.fi. 

Sources: 
•    Brazilian National Science, Technology and Innovation Conference (5CNCTI), organized in Brasília from July 30 to August 1, 2024
•    AI for the good of all - Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Plan 2024-2028: https://www.gov.br/mcti/pt-br/acompanhe-o-mcti/noticias/2024/07/plano-brasileiro-de-ia-tera-supercomputador-e-investimento-de-r-23-bilhoes-em-quatro-anos/ia_para_o_bem_de_todos.pdf/view
•    TFK project: Finnish-Brazilian Joint Multidisciplinary Training Program for Technical Aspects and Social Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and (beyond) 5G networks https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/Finnish-Brazilian%20Joint%20Multidisciplinary%20Training%20Program.pdf


Text and photos: Johanna Kivimäki
 Cover of the Brazilian AI plan: “AI for the good of all”.
 

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