World Summit AI conference announces funding from events firm Reed Exhibitions

**Exclusive:** World Summit AI, an artificial intelligence conference taking place in Amsterdam in October, has received an investment from Reed Exhibitions Deutschland.

No terms for the investment were disclosed. Reed Exhibitions Deutschland is a division of events organiser Reed Exhibitions.

World Summit AI is an industry event for applied AI, taking place at Gashouder in Amsterdam, and has thus far announced speakers from NASA, IBM Watson, Uber, Apple, and the UN for the conference on October 11-12.

Speakers already confirmed include: NASA senior research scientist and head of AI at NASA, Steve Chein; senior strategy and policy advisor UNICRI at the United Nations, Iraklu Beridze; and former chief economist for the Obama administration, Jason Furman.

“Artificial Intelligence is a sector that will fundamentally change the way business, the economy and society operates and is an important element of our further growth strategy,” said Hans-Joachim Erbel, CEO of Reed Exhibitions Deutschland on the investment.

World Summit AI was cofounded by Inspired Minds CEO, Sarah Coles-Porter and City.AI cofounders Mike Reiner and Christoph Auer Welsbach.

“We did not want to create another dull tech conference and have set out create a summit very much in tune with our community,” said Coles Porter.

“With world class speakers and a more hands on practical and experiential vibe, we are providing our community with tangible outcomes of Applied AI that they can apply in their organisations. We are very excited by the access to worldwide data, resource and operations that this partnership with Reed provides us and our ecosystem with.”

The event will also host the General AI Challenge, awarding $5 million in prizes to entries that are tackling research problems in human-level AI development, and accelerator/coworking company Rockstart will host a startup contest with more details to be announced. World50.com will also bring together select CEOs for closed door discussions on AI.