Fujitsu Limited and BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), have signed a three-year comprehensive joint research agreement to develop technologies and solutions to contribute to the realization of safe, real-world applications of AI and machine learning technologies. The newly-established "Fujitsu Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Israel" (Fujitsu CCoE IL) hosts a team of approximately 20 researchers including Prof. Yuval Elovici and Prof. Asaf Shabtai. The lab is headed by Prof. Elovici, Department of Information Systems Engineering and Head of BGU'sCyber Security Research Center located at the Cyber@BGU labs in the advanced technology park at the university's campus in Israel. With this initiative, Fujitsu and Ben-Gurion University aim to accelerate joint research and development into technologies that offer solutions to threats posed to AI models and machine learning, improving the trustworthiness and security of AI-based systems and software that increasingly impact their daily lives. AI and machine learning technologies play a growing role in society, with promising applications emerging that will increasingly affect their daily lives, including the improvement of public safety through analysis of human behavior in surveillance video data, product quality control through the detection of abnormalities, product recommendations, as well as to improvement of autonomous driving. With the growth and expansion of these technologies, however, the need to improve AI security represents an urgent priority. Hostile entities use increasingly sophisticated techniques to threaten critical infrastructure and systems by stealing and leaking confidential information contained in AI datasets. For instance, adding special noises to video data can cause the AI to misidentify people or misdetect actions. Fujitsu CCoE IL will address these issues through research on AI security to detect such attacks, protect against adversarial access to AI systems, and to make the models more robust against attacks. As part of their new partnership, Fujitsu and BGU will focus on research that confronts these threats to make AI technologies safer and more trustworthy. For one of the Center's initial research projects, researchers from Fujitsu and Ben-Gurion University will apply an AI model (Out of Distribution detection model [1]) that can detect new, unknown types of threats, such as attacks on drones and fraud in network communications and develop technologies able to appropriately cope with the rapidly evolving attack methods. The Out of Distribution detection model will additionally be applied to detect product malfunctions in cases where unexpected data appears intentionally or accidently. Length of contract: Three years. Roles and responsibilities: Fujitsu: Development of security technologies for AI-based systems and software. Examination of scenarios for technology verification. Support for verification and evaluation. Ben-Gurion University: Development of security technologies for AI-based systems and software. Research, verification, and evaluation of security technologies for AI-implemented systems and software. Research Contents: The two partners will conduct trials at the Fujitsu CCoE IL in Israel simulating various cases of security threats to AI and will promote advanced research toward the establishment of technologies to defend against such threats. Future Plans Fujitsu and Ben-Gurion University will promote research and development activities at the Fujitsu CCoE IL in order to realize AI security technologies applicable to a wide range of fields with the ultimate objective of delivering advanced solutions for the global market that will contribute to the solution of various social issues.