AnthroTech Cluster of Excellence

The AnthroTech Cluster of Excellence (ACE) is funded by the Swedish Research Council and positioned at the intersection of autonomous interactive systems, cybersecurity and intelligent infrastructures, and personalised digital health. These domains are undergoing rapid transformation through advances in machine learning, multimodal sensing, embodied AI, and distributed human AI collaboration. Together, they provide a generative foundation for rethinking how intelligent systems are designed, deployed, and integrated into everyday life.

Rationale and Vision

The name AnthroTech reflects the recognition that we are living in the Anthropocene. Technological systems are deeply entangled with human activity and increasingly shape the social, political, and ecological conditions of life. As intelligent systems become embedded in hospitals, homes, transport, education, and governance, the consequences of their design and deployment become more significant.

AnthroTech adopts a relational understanding of intelligent systems. Success is not defined solely by computational performance. Instead, it depends on the capacity of these systems to be socially legible, culturally responsive, and procedurally accountable. These qualities cannot be engineered in isolation. They emerge through interaction in real contexts, which raises important questions of control, responsibility, and relationality that current frameworks of design and governance struggle to address.

A European Approach to Breakthrough Technologies

The project argues that Europe must pursue a distinct path in advancing breakthrough innovation. The US model has generated technological advances, but has also contributed to social and economic inequalities, enabled unsafe technological practices, and placed commercial interests above the public good.

In response, AnthroTech places human centred, socially informed, and critically reflective perspectives at the heart of technological innovation. The cluster sets out a vision for reimagining intelligent systems as a societal frontier that prioritises equity, responsibility, and long term public benefit.

Collaboration and Funding

AnthroTech is a joint initiative between RISE, KTH, Stockholm University, and Uppsala University. It is funded by the Swedish Research Council through the planning grant for future excellence clusters in groundbreaking technologies. The aim of the grant is to support a constellation of researchers in preparing a future large scale application to establish world leading excellence clusters.

The Swedish Research Council and Vinnova collaborate on this national initiative. Their shared goal is to realise the government’s vision of excellence clusters that strengthen Swedish expertise and competitiveness in strategic technological fields. These clusters are intended to become leaders in areas of groundbreaking technology and to contribute to the long term capacity and innovation power of Swedish industry.