The future of the Czech electrical engineering industry is linked to digitalisation and AI

The long-term shortage of qualified workers in the electrical engineering industry could be addressed with the help of digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI). Introducing AI into manufacturing is more complicated, as large amounts of data need to be collected to train it. Jan Prokš, director of the Electrical Engineering Association of the Czech Republic, told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) today at the Amper trade fair at the Brno Exhibition Centre.

“We have been seeing a shortage of workers in the labour market for a long time, and it is not limited to our industry. Digitalising manufacturing is one way to reverse this adverse trend. Artificial intelligence is a major topic in this context,” Prokš said.

He added that artificial intelligence is nothing new in programming, but the development of language models has been a major step forward. “The fact that AI can understand everyday language changes the situation significantly and broadens the possibilities for its use in manufacturing. However, the speed at which it can be introduced into manufacturing is limited by the amount of data needed to train it. The data must reflect the specific operation, and there needs to be a large amount of it, so collecting it takes time,” he said.

He added that the use of artificial intelligence also underscores the need to verify authenticity, where blockchain technology—a digital database of transactions or data—plays a major role. “At a time when today’s technology can create a perfectly convincing video or photograph, the ability to verify the authenticity of information is priceless,” Prokš added.

The Amper trade fair opened today at the Brno Exhibition Centre and runs until Thursday. A total of 440 exhibitors from 25 countries are taking part in halls P and F. The accompanying programme includes a number of seminars and professional conferences through Thursday.