Interviewee: Evangelos Kafantaris, Technical Manager, Data & AI Systems Group, UBITECH

Role in PROTEAS project: PROTEAS Project Partner

Question: Please describe in a few words the role of your entity in the PROTEAS project and the business goals you aim to achieve through the participation.

Evangelos Kafantaris: UBITECH participates in the PROTEAS project as the developer and provider of the PIPE4AI subsystem of the PROTEAS SoS Intelligence Platform. This subsystem introduces and implements a modular framework for the monitoring and benchmarking of diverse AI model architectures in mission-critical environments. Our role encompasses the full design and development lifecycle of this system, from gap analysis of existing offerings to the implementation of near real-time monitoring capabilities that track energy consumption, performance efficiency and hardware utilization across end-to-end machine learning pipelines, accommodating the complete data lifecycle.

Through its participation in PROTEAS, UBITECH achieves several interconnected business goals. These include the advancement of its technical expertise and market positioning in the domain of AI model lifecycle management in mission critical and defence applications. This is of particular interest to our team as AI adoption accelerates across both the defence and civilian sectors. Also, through its engagement with the PROTEAS consortium, our team expands its collaborative network with leading European defence contractors and innovative SMEs, opening pathways for future joint ventures/collaborations and technology transfer opportunities. Moving forward, we aim to leverage PROTEAS as a springboard for commercializing our AI monitoring and benchmarking solutions.

Question: Please describe in a few words the added-value presented by the envisaged PROTEAS outcomes and your view on their possible future adoption.

Evangelos Kafantaris: The introduction of a robust and operationally aware monitoring and benchmarking system allows the end user to have a holistic perspective regarding the production and operation of their AI systems. This improves our ability to select fit-for-purpose AI models when transitioning from laboratory development to critical application deployments, bound by operational constraints. Additionally, when considering the long-term support of deployed AI systems, such as the ones produced within the scope of PROTEAS, monitoring capabilities become a necessity for establishing, at an industrialized scale, efficient development and deployment cycles.

The potential future adoption of these outcomes is multidirectional. In the near term, the frameworks and tools developed within PROTEAS are directly applicable to European defence and public safety organizations, seeking to operationalize AI. Over the medium and long term, the modular and adaptable design of systems like PIPE4AI, positions them as foundational tools for bolstering European AI industrialization, enabling organizations to develop, calibrate and deploy fit-for-purpose AI models at an accelerated pace. Finally, as awareness around AI energy efficiency and sustainable scaling grows, the benchmarking capabilities developed within PROTEAS could be adopted beyond the defence sector, including critical infrastructures and dual-use applications.

Question: Please describe in a few words the experience of collaborating with several partners, from across Europe, towards a complex common end goal as part of PROTEAS.

Evangelos Kafantaris: It is important to highlight that the unique opportunities for collaboration created through PROTEAS are of strategic value, both for the partners involved in the project, as well as the wider European defence ecosystem. For all partners involved, PROTEAS acts as a catalyst for innovation by bringing together established defence contractors and innovative SMEs, creating a dynamic environment where technical expertise, operational experience, and industrial perspectives come together to address the inherently multidisciplinary challenges of our endeavor. This process leads to the formulation of enduring synergies among partners, as we continuously learn from each other’s perspectives and identify areas where our capabilities complement one another. It is this mutual understanding that ultimately benefits the wider ecosystem, since it helps us move toward a more streamlined industrial base that can deliver cohesive and effective solutions, in support of European defence.