aiLights - AI @ Swiss Cantons | Basel-Stadt

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly making its way into cantonal administrations – but how can the public sector utilize AI while maintaining full control over sensitive data? The Canton of Basel-Stadt has developed a sovereign, self-hosted AI platform that keeps all data within the cantonal network and does not share any information with external cloud providers. Built on open-source infrastructure and published on GitHub, the platform represents a clear commitment to transparency, digital sovereignty, and Open Government Data (OGD). This presentation provides a concrete insight into how the DCC Data Competence Center of the Canton of Basel-Stadt has designed and operates its cantonal AI platform. Jonas Bieri will guide through the complete technical stack – from Nvidia H100 GPUs and inference engines like VLLM to models like Gemma 3, Qwen 3, and Llama 3.3 – and present applications already in use, including an AI transcription tool, a translation service, and a RAG-based chatbot for employees (Bebbi Bot). The session will also cover the cantonal AI guidelines that regulate the use of AI by employees and provide an outlook on the expansion of the infrastructure. Following the presentation, there will be 15 minutes for Q&A. Speaker: Jonas Bieri DCC Data Competence Center, Statistical Office, Canton of Basel-Stadt​📅 Date & Time: 09.09.2026, 9:00-10:00⏱️ Duration: 60 minutes🌐 Language: German🗣️ Format: 45 min presentation + 15 min Q&A📍 Location: Live on Zoom, YT👥 Target Audience: Public Administration & Politics, technical professionals (AI practitioners, developers, data specialists), academia (researchers & students), AI enthusiasts The series "AI @ Swiss Cantons" is supported by egovpartner.​🔗 More online sessions from aiLights: https://luma.com/aiLights