TeraLab: Big Data and AI Platform for Research, Innovation, and Education

Overview

TeraLab is an AI and big data platform for education, research, and innovation, a fully owned subsidiary of IMT, a leading French engineering school.

TeraLab was launched as a winner project of the 2012 big data call of the French Investment for the Future scheme (5.6 million euros).  TeraLab has been operational since 2014 and has conducted over 60 projects in a variety of fields, with a focus on industry, healthcare, and cybersecurity.

TeraLab is a non-profit with hybrid funding, coming both from competitve projects (regional, national, and European) and private clients (SMEs or larger companies).

Its mission is to accelerate data-driven innovation of companies and institutions, as well as by providing infrastructure, architecture, tools, access to data, and an ecosystem of talent, research, and training.

TeraLab expertise lies in data sharing and AI tools via its own data infrastructure, and technology transfer via IMT research labs. TeraLab has developed infrastructure that allows sharing and experimenting with data in secure, neutral, and trusted environment. This infrastructure comprises technical, legal, and human elements, can be installed with different levels of security, depending on the project needs, and is well suited for sensitive data such as healthcare data. Technological factor includes types of infrastructure, user access control, data encryption and anonymization methods, cybersecurity, and technical support. Legal factor includes legal framework adapted for each project. Human factor includes procedures to access and manipulate data before, during, and after the project for data sponsors, owners, and data scientists.

Services provided include ecosystem building (community building, strategy development, ecosystem management); business (identification of opportunities, access to skills and training, via IMT labs and training efforts, such as MOOCs, summer and winter schools, and the Franco-German Academy for the Industry of the Future); and technology services (data infrastructure, support to innovation and R&D, POCs, testing and validation).

TeraLab has strong links on regional, national, and European level. Regionally, in Greater Paris region, TeraLab has strong relations with regional clusters (Cap Digital, Systematic, Medicen), which play an important part in our ecosystem to access startups and SMEs. Nationally, we are partners with the Hub France IA, and are involved in projects in Brittany (cybersecurity) and Northern France (industry), among others.

As a DIH, its mission is to accelerate data-driven innovation by providing infrastructure, architecture, tools, access to data sharing facilities, and an ecosystem of talent, research, and training. Examples include regional projects (PackIA), national (contribution to the French AI strategy), bilateral (the French-German Academy for the Industry of the Future, the Joint AI Platform, GAIA-X), and European (AI4EU, Boost 4.0, MIDIH, PULSE, METRICS, ASSISTANT, EUHubs4Data).

TeraLab is one of the 30 European AI DIHs and part of select AI DIH Network. TeraLab holds a BDVA European “Silver i-Space” label, and is the French Hub of IDSA. Digital technologies.