Innovative AI

Leading global research location

AI research has a decades-long tradition in Switzerland. The Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA USI-SUPSI) in southern Switzerland was founded in 1988. Since 2017, research has intensified significantly, with the number of research projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation more than quadrupling between 2017 and 2022, from 30 to over 120 per year. According to the Global AI Index, this puts Switzerland among the top five countries in terms of AI research.

Organisational innovations give research even more clout. In autumn 2024, ETH Zurich and EPFL launched the Swiss National AI Institute (SNAI) to provide a national perspective on AI-based research, education and innovation. SNAI will accelerate the momentum of the Swiss AI Initiative and spearhead research on large-scale AI, enabled by the ‘Alps’ supercomputer with more than 10,000 of the latest generation AI superchips (Graphics Processing Units, or GPUs). Leveraging its integration with the ETH AI Center and the EPFL AI Center, the new institute benefits from the expertise of more than 70 AI-focused professors across Switzerland.

Starting advantage thanks to strong home market

In the EY European AI Barometer 2024, Switzerland emerged as an AI success story: the study found widespread financial gains in companies through the use of AI, a positive employee mindset and comparatively low levels of concern about job losses. The study concluded that Switzerland is leading the AI transformation

This leading role opens up various opportunities for startups, with many of them able to gain existing companies as partners or customers. At the end of 2024, the Swiss stock exchange operator SIX introduced Unique’s AI platform FinanceGPT for more than 4,000 employees. Netguardians’ AI-driven anti-fraud solutions are currently used by 60% of Swiss state-owned commercial banks. And the Mikron Group, a globally successful Swiss mechanical engineering company, has acquired startup LYSR’s software platform, which enables manufacturing industries to take advantage of AI-powered process monitoring without the need to code.

The opportunity to work with strong Swiss companies has led AI startups to focus on the most important Swiss industries. The largest group of startups develop solutions for the life sciences, fintech and insurtech companies follow in second place, and Industry 4.0 companies take third place. More than 100 AI startups are active in each of these sectors.