Competing for computing muscle
Almost every day the world wakes up to news from the tech sector, currently driven by the latest developments in artificial intelligence. These changes affect how academics research, teach and how students learn. Through networking, such as in The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, academics share solutions and pool their strengths to find new solutions to new challenges.
Researchers in fields such as medicine and the natural sciences urgently need as much computer processing power as they can get to stay at the forefront of science. Sascha Tayefeh, Head of the Office for Digitalization at the University of Bern, argues that universities are in a global competition for processing power.
A global power play
“Raw processing power can make all the difference between achieving a scientific breakthrough or not,” believes Tayefeh. A medicine professor recently told him that it took him almost a year to get a limited amount of server capacity approved in Europe, whereas on another continent he got unlimited space approved in a fraction of the time.
“European universities are competing with global tech companies for cutting-edge hardware.”
Sascha Tayefeh
Tayefeh explains that “European universities are competing with global tech companies for cutting-edge hardware. The winners obtain massive computing power by being fast and market driven, which are not among the strengths of universities.” As a university, “we excel at researching and teaching, both of which are heavily impacted by the speed of change in artificial intelligence,” continues Tayefeh.
Peer consulting
Sascha Tayefeh suggests that “as one single university, we cannot realistically solve all our problems of processing capacity on our own. Therefore, we need to come together and build alliances, which is why I am so grateful to be part of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities.”
The Guild working group Strategic Leads on Digital Transformation brings together 24 digitalization experts from 22 universities in 16 European countries. “Finding consultants with the same kind of expertise as this group would be almost impossible – and if so, they would be very expensive,” Tayefeh reckons.
The focus of this working group lies on networking to find out where other universities stand on the road to digitalisation – what Tayefeh calls “peer consulting”. Moreover, the group is exploring shared solutions that work for universities. “Many of our researchers have an urgent need for growing server space and our long-term goal is working together to accommodate that”, explains Tayefeh.
Connecting people and institutions
These insights from The Guild working group help Sascha Tayefeh and his counterparts at the other member universities to formulate recommendations to their respective university boards on how to best respond to the latest developments in digitalization. They in turn help the university boards and The Guild to influence the European Commission in the legislative processes of the EU.
“We need to come together and build alliances, which is why I am so grateful to be part of The Guild.”
Sascha Tayefeh
The Strategic Leads on Digital Transformation working group met in Bern in November 2024 to kick-start their new projects. As a follow-up, the CEO of Switch, Tom Kleiber, and Tayefeh will visit the Vice Rector for Digitalization at the University of Vienna.
By working together, The Guild universities will find new and innovative solutions to reap the benefits of digitalisation and respond to its challenges. Universities may not be the first in every digital trend, but they work on solutions that bring lasting benefits to society.
Find out more
The University of Bern is in the lead in two Guild working groups: Sascha Tayefeh heads the working group Strategic Leads on Digital Transformation and Rainer Hirsch-Luipold leads the Deans of Theology.
Interview: Caspar Bienek
Images: Sascha Tayefeh and Henriette Graf