Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

172
Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
A fundamental challenge, or perhaps a fundamen-
tal obstacle, to the use of AI at companies is posed in 
particular by users’ skills in the relevant industries 
and/or the availability of staff with AI expertise. This 
relates both to AI generalists and AI specialists in ar-
eas including neural networks as well as software en-
gineers in AI. Another related obstacle is how much it 
costs to create the necessary expertise in AI and to 
implement the innovations that have been devised.
170
For SMEs in particular, (high) investment costs are 
a major barrier preventing the use of AI and/or lead-
ing to a certain reluctance to embrace AI applica-
tions. Perhaps more than any other type of company, 
SMEs also face the problem of not having the neces-
sary quality and quantity of data at their disposal for 
AI learning processes. Overall, however, the main 
AI-related barriers for SMEs concern their personnel. 
They need staff with the relevant skills and would 
appear to have a hard time successfully getting into 
AI “on the side, without interrupting normal opera-
tions” using their existing workforce.
171
170 See Prem and Ruhland (2019).
171 See Schaper-Rinkel (2019).
172 See Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) and Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs 
(BMDW) (2019b).
A further challenge lies in the lack of standards to 
provide legal certainty, increase interoperability, cut 
the cost of implementing IT solutions and expand 
sales markets (international compatibility of solu-
tions developed in Austria).
172
3.5 AI as a topic in applied research 
funding
The major and ever-growing significance of AI is also 
reflected in research funding. Between 2012 and 
2017, the federal government provided €349.9 million 
in funds for the AI field, the bulk of which (94%) went 
to programmes implemented by the Austrian Re-
search Promotion Agency (FFG).
Fig. 3-4 shows a recent evaluation of the agency’s 
funding statistics for the total funding approved be-
tween 2017 and 2019 (funding and expenses) that 
can be attributed to the topic of artificial intelligence 
using a text mining process that the agency itself