Master in Artificial Intelligence
Maastricht, Netherlands
DURATION
2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
01 Nov 2024
EARLIEST START DATE
01 Feb 2025
TUITION FEES
EUR 2,530 / per year
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Introduction
Master’s programme in Artificial Intelligence
The Master of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a two-year advanced programme organized by the Department of Advanced Computing Sciences. The focus of this programme is on the understanding, design and creation of intelligent systems in both software (e.g., computer games) and hardware (e.g., robotics). The term “Artificial Intelligence” dates back to 1956 when John McCarthy defined it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”. Even though nowadays we are still far from building machines that can pass the famous Turing test (A. Turing, Mind, 59 (236), 1950 - a test to determine whether a machine shows human intelligence), Artificial Intelligence has become a very active domain in both academia and industry. It has achieved to build computer programmes and robots that learn from experience, recognize patterns in vast amounts of data, and reason strategically in complex decision-making situations. Artificial Intelligence is, therefore, an interdisciplinary field where domains such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy and Economics meet.
The impact of the field of Artificial Intelligence is pertinent due to the key role it plays for technological applications that have become indispensable in society, including data mining (e.g., detection of fraudulent credit card transactions), automated trading software in real markets, intelligent network routing on the internet, robotic space exploration, sensor networks for medical applications and many more. In this master programme, you are trained to become an expert in Artificial Intelligence, capable of dealing with today's and future challenges.
Admissions
Curriculum
The master’s programme in Artificial Intelligence is a two-year programme taught entirely in English and leads to the title Master of Science (M.Sc.).
In the first year, you follow courses on topics concerning machine learning, multi-agent systems, intelligent search, games and knowledge discovery. The courses on these topics are complemented with two projects that enable you to combine and apply what you have learned in these courses.
During the first semester of the second year, the programme allows you to pursue personal interests. You can partake in an international exchange, an elective semester, participate in a company or a research internship. In the second semester of the second year, you will work on your master’s thesis on a research topic of your personal interest, under the supervision of one of the academic staff members. You can do this master’s thesis research internally or externally at a company or in collaboration with one of the partner universities.
Programme description
The master’s programme in Artificial Intelligence covers a wide range of subjects emphasising the following eight research topics:
- Machine learning to explore relations in datasets
- Multi-agent systems of collaborating autonomous intelligent systems
- Situated agents that can operate in environments using uncertain observations
- Formal techniques for reasoning in agents
- Techniques for representing knowledge
- Intelligent techniques for playing and solving board games and controlling virtual characters in commercial video games
- Extracting interesting and non-trivial information and knowledge from unstructured text
- Relational learning to extend machine learning techniques to deal with expressive logical or relational representations.
In addition, master’s thesis research can be carried out that relates to projects offered by institutes and companies in the region. The members of the scientific staff are all actively involved in the department's ongoing research programme. As a result, the educational content of the courses in the master’s programme in AI relates directly to the research performed.
Gallery
Career Opportunities
The Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence provides you with a thorough knowledge of algorithms, methods and techniques from the domain of Artificial Intelligence. It enables you to understand and develop intelligent systems in a wide variety of settings. You will be able to develop computational solutions to problems and provide up-to-date scientific and technological advice in a professional setting. The Artificial Intelligence programme is based on the Project-Centred Learning (PCL) education system.
The PCL education system incorporates a number of important skills, including working in teams, interview techniques, project planning and presentation. Each of these skills will be important to future employers. During the program, e you will acquire a scientific, problem-solving attitude and will be able to find the relevant literature and software. In addition, you are able to critically evaluate scientific papers and software solutions. Taken together, after obtaining the Master of Science degree in Artificial Intelligence you will possess all the basic competencies of a scientific researcher, have excellent writing and presentation skills, and are trained to work in a team.
The Master degree in Artificial Intelligence provides good perspectives in obtaining a position at a research institute or research-oriented company. This includes doctoral and management positions at universities, governmental institutions, and R&D departments in the industry. Others will find their way to management and consultancy positions involving advanced knowledge processing or will start their own company.