Austria is seeking to build long-term, structured collaboration with India in artificial intelligence, higher education and digital governance, with a strong emphasis on ethics, trust and human-centric AI, said Horst Bischof, Director of Graz University of Technology, on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in India.
Speaking to NDTV's Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul, Bischof said Austria's three leading technical universities, located in Vienna, Linz and Graz, have come together under a unified academic framework known as "TU Austria" to strengthen international cooperation, particularly with India. This initiative follows discussions held during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Vienna, where both sides agreed to deepen academic and research engagement.
"For us, collaboration with India is not symbolic, it is operational," said Bischof, who leads Graz University of Technology and also chairs the Austrian government's AI advisory board. He noted that India's Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are a natural partner, calling them "premium institutions with superb students."
Bischof revealed that Graz University already has professors who graduated from the IIT system and hosts a growing number of Indian students. Austria, he said, now wants to scale this engagement, especially by recruiting Indian students at the master's level, in a coordinated national approach rather than isolated university efforts. He added that he had personally visited five IIT campuses in November as part of this outreach.
At the AI Impact Summit, which he described as "impressive in scale and ambition," Bischof said Austria showcased its strengths in applied and responsible AI research. Austria's technical universities are active in areas such as AI-driven cybersecurity, energy-efficient computing, computer vision, autonomous systems and medical imaging.
"My own background is in computer vision," Bischof said, pointing to decades of research in autonomous driving, trauma control and medical diagnostics. "When I started, AI was a niche field. Today, it is at the very heart of computer science and society." He said the presence of over 160,000 participants at the summit reflected how central AI has become to global policy and innovation debates.
A key theme highlighted by Bischof was Austria's strong advocacy of "Digital Humanism," a concept that originated in Vienna and has since gained traction across Europe. Digital Humanism, he explained, places humans - not machines - at the centre of technological development.
"AI must assist humans, not replace them," he said. "We should see AI as a co-worker, but for that we need trustworthy systems - systems where we understand outputs, where small changes in input do not create unpredictable results."
Bischof also raised concerns over AI sovereignty, warning against excessive concentration of power among a handful of global technology companies. He said Europe, including Austria, is increasingly focused on digital sovereignty, a theme overseen by Austria's State Secretary for Digitalisation and e-Governance, Alexander Pröll, who led the Austrian delegation to the summit.
On regulation, Bischof acknowledged Europe's tendency toward detailed rule-making, particularly in AI and social media governance. While some regulation is necessary to prevent harm, he cautioned that overregulation could stifle innovation. "The challenge is balance - protecting society without killing momentum," he said.
He also welcomed debates on regulating social media for younger users, noting that Austria's discussions closely align with France's approach. "We should not allow things online that would never be acceptable in the real world," he said.
Addressing the growing threat of misinformation and deepfakes, Bischof described it as an "arms race" between malicious actors and those developing countermeasures. He said AI would be essential in detecting disinformation at scale, though no solution would be permanent. "Those spreading disinformation will use AI too. The question is who adapts faster."
He warned that upcoming global elections, including in the United States, would likely test the world's ability to manage AI-driven misinformation.
Bischof praised India's effort at the AI Impact Summit to broaden the AI conversation beyond regulation and safety to include equity, access and the Global South. "India is pushing the debate forward," he said, adding that deeper collaboration between India and Austria could help shape a more inclusive and human-centric AI future.
