Abstract
This document requests parties having rights to technologies satisfying the Use Cases and Functional Requirements [3] and the Framework Licence [4] of the planned Technical Specification: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 to respond to this Call for Technologies preferably using the Template for Responses [5]. The goal of MPAI-CUI V2.0 is to specify the AI Modules and the Data Types of a Company Performance Prediction AI Workflow that uses Governance and Financial Data, Risk Data to predict the future of a Company in a number of years. The submissions received will be assessed, collaboratively improved if found suitable, and used in the development of the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification.
Contents
6 Expected timeline and development
Annex 2 – Mandatory text in a submission
1 Introduction
Established in September 2020, MPAI is an international non-profit organisation with the mission to develop standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled data coding and technologies facilitating integration of data coding components into Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems [1]. The MPAI Patent Policy [2] guides the accomplishment of this mission.
So far, MPAI has developed thirteen Technical Specifications relevant to its mission such as execution environment of multi-component AI applications, portable avatar format, object and scene description, neural network watermarking, context-based audio enhancements, multimodal human-machineinteraction, company performance prediction, metaverse, profiles, qualifiers, and ecosystem governance. Seven Technical Specifications have been adopted by IEEE without modification (3300-2024, 3301-2024, 3302-2022, 3303-2023, 3304-2023, 3305-2024, 3306-2024, 3307-2024) and more are in the pipeline. Several other standard projects – such as AI for health, online gaming and XR venues – are under way and are expected to deliver specifications in the next few months.
MPAI specifications are the result of a process whose main steps are:
- Development of functional requirements in an open environment.
- Adoption of “commercial requirements” (Framework Licence) by MPAI Principal Members setting guidelines for the future commercial licence to be issued by standard essential patent (SEP) holders.
- Publication of a Call for Technologies – such as this document – referring to the Functional and Commercial Requirements and inviting parties who accept to license their technologies according to the Framework Licence – if their technologies are accepted to be part of the target Technical Specification – to submit a Response.
2 Scope and purpose
This Technical Specification: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 invites any party able and wishing to contribute to the development of the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification to submit a response. If their technologies are selected by MPAI for possible modification and inclusion in the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification, they are required to eventually license their technologies in a future commercial licence respecting the guidelines of the Framework Licence: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 [4].
Any respondent who is not an MPAI member and wishes to participate in the development of MPAI-CUI shall join MPAI. If they own accepted technologies and do not join MPAI, they lose the opportunity to have their technologies included in the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification.
The planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification will be developed using technologies that satisfy the following mandatory requirements:
- Be part of responses to this Call submitted by parties accepting the MPAI-CUI Framework Licence [4] and satisfy the MPAI-CUI Use Cases and Functional Requirements [3].
- Be integrated by subsequent Members’ contributions during the development of the MPAI-CUI Technical Specification. Such contributions shall be submitted stating acceptance of the MPAI-CUI Framework Licence [4].
Therefore, the scope of this Call is restricted to responses whose specification in the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification conforms to [3]. However, respondents are welcome to additionally:
- Comment on any technical element of Use Cases and Functional Requirements: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 [3].
- Propose Technologies based on motivated proposals to extend or add new functional requirements in Use Cases and Functional Requirements [3] provided they:
- Are in line with the scope of Use Cases and Functional Requirements [3].
- Satisfy the Framework Licence [4].
MPAI membership is not a prerequisite for responding to this Call for Technologies. However, proponents should be aware that, if their Submission or part thereof is accepted for inclusion in the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification, they will be required to immediately join MPAI, or lose the opportunity to have their accepted technologies included in the standard.
MPAI will select the most suitable technologies based on their technical merits. However, MPAI in not obligated, by virtue of this Call, to select a particular technology or to select any of the proposed technologies if those submitted are found to be inadequate.
Note that in the future, MPAI may decide to further extend the planned MPAI-CUI or a new part of a future MPAI-CUI series of Technical Specifications.
3 Components of a submission
Responses to this Call for Technologies shall/may include:
Table 1 – Optional and mandatory elements of a response
Note: the materials listed in the table shall be uploaded to the repository (registration required)
| Item | Status |
| The filled-out version of Annex 1 | mandatory |
| A complete description of the proposed AI Workflow, AI Modules, and Data Types with a level of detail allowing an expert in the field to develop an implementation. | mandatory |
| The text of Annex 2. | mandatory |
| Comments on the completeness and appropriateness of the MPAI-CUI Functional Requirements and any motivated suggestion to amend and/or extend those Requirements. | optional |
| A preliminary real-time demonstration, with a detailed document describing it. | optional |
| Any other additional relevant information that may help evaluate the submission. | optional |
4 How to submit a response
Those planning to respond to this Call are:
- Advised that the MPAI-CUI Call for Technologies will be presented online on 2025/01/08T15:00 UTC.
- Requested to communicate their intention to respond to this Call with an initial version of the form of Annex 1to the MPAI secretariat by 2025/01/18. Submission of a duly filled out Annex 1 helps MPAI to properly plan for assessing the submissions. This is not a requirement, however, and the submission of a respondent to this Call who did not submit Annex 1 will still be accepted.
- Encouraged to regularly visit the MPAI-CUI webpage where relevant additional information may be posted.
- Required to deliver mandatorily their submissions to the MPAI secretariat by 2025/02/11 T23:59 UTC. The secretariat will acknowledge receipt of the submission via email.
- Required to attend the review of submissions according to the schedule that the 53rd MPAI General Assembly (MPAI-53) will define at its online meeting on 2025/02/19. The MPAI secretariat will inform submitters about how non MPAI members can attend the said review sessions. Respondents shall present their submission at such online review sessions. If no presenter of a submission will be in attendance, the submission will be discarded.
Further information on MPAI can be obtained from the MPAI website.
5 Evaluation
Submissions will be evaluated by an Evaluation Team created from:
- MPAI Member representatives in attendance.
- Non-MPAI Member representatives who are respondents to any of the received submissions.
- Non respondent experts/non MPAI Member representatives invited in a consulting capacity.
- No one from 1. and 2. will be denied membership in the Evaluation Panel if they request it.
Evaluation Team members will fill out an Evaluation Form containing the following elements.
Proposal title:
Response summary: (a few lines)
Comments on possible MPAI-CUI profiles1
Assessment of submission features:
| Note 1 | The semantics of submission features is given by Table 3. |
| Note 2 | Evaluation Elements indicate the elements used by Evaluators in assessing the submission. |
Table 2 – Features to be considered in a submission
| Submission features | Evaluation Elements |
| Completeness of description | A detailed description is recommended. |
| Understandability of description | A detailed description is recommended. |
| Complexity of proposal | MAC/Pixel mandatorily, complexity computed using SADL reccomended. |
| Software implementability | A detailed description is recommended |
Evaluation summary:
- Main strong points, qualitatively:
- Main weak points, qualitatively:
Additional remarks: (points of importance not covered above.)
The submission features in Table 2 are explained in the following Table 3.
Table 3 – Explanation of submission features
| Submission features | Criteria |
| Completeness of description | Evaluators should: check if respondents have described in sufficient detail how the requirements are supported by the proposal.
Note: Submissions will be judged for the merit of what is proposed. A submission on a single technology that is excellent may be considered despite complete but less performing submission. |
| Understandability | Evaluators should identify items that are demonstrably unclear (inconsistencies, sentences with dubious meaning etc.) |
| Complexity | Evaluators should identify issues that would make it difficult to implement the proposal compared to the state of the art. |
| Software implementability | Possibility to run real time the proposal. |
Software implementability is a desiderable feature.
6 Expected timeline and development
Timeline of the Call for Technologies, deadlines and response evaluation:
Table 4 – Dates and deadlines
| Step | Date | Time |
| MPAI-CUI Call for Technologies issued. | 2024/12/18 | 15:00 UTC |
| MPAI-CUI Call for Technologies presented online. | 2025/01/08 | 15:00 UTC |
| Notification of intention to submit a proposal (Annex 1). | 2025/01/18 | 23:59 UTC |
| Response submission deadline. | 2025/02/11 | 23:59 UTC |
| Start of response evaluation. | 2024/02/19 | (MPAI-53) |
The Evaluation Panel and its subgroups – if any – will conduct its work during 1-hour online sessions according to the calendar agreed at MPAI-53.
The MPAI-CUI Call for Technologies requests submitters who decide to participate in the development of the standard after the Test, to enable MPAI to develop the standard smoothly and effectively by committing to the following:
- To collaborate with all other submitters.
- To make eventually available their encoding and decoding programs in source code if (parts of) their submission is accepted.
- To make available their own training and testing code in case this is required to facilitate the development of the standard.
- To execute code if requested to progress the development of the standard, based on a fair sharing of the work.
7 References
- MPAI Statutes
- MPAI Patent Policy
- MPAI; Use Cases and Functional Requirements: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 (MPAI-CUI); N2130
- MPAI; Framework Licence: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 (MPAI-CUI); N2131
- MPAI; Template for Responses: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 (MPAI-CUI); N2132.
- SADL https://github.com/InterDigitalInc/SADL
Annex 1 – Registration Form
This Registration Form is to be filled in by a prospective Respondent to this MPAI-CUI Call for Technologies.
- Title of the proposal.
- Organisation: company name, position, e-mail of contact person.
- What are the main functionalities of your proposal?
- Does your proposal provide or describe a formal specification and APIs?
- Will you provide a demonstration to show how your proposal meets the evaluation criteria?
Annex 2 – Mandatory text in a submission
A submission in response to Call for Technologies: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 (MPAI-CUI) shall mandatorily include the following text:
<Company/Member> submits this technical document in response to Call for Technologies: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 (N2129).
<Company/Member> explicitly agrees to the steps of the MPAI standards development process defined in Annex 1 to the MPAI Statutes (N2115), in particular <Company/Member> declares that <Company/Member> or its successors will make available the terms of the Licence related to its Essential Patents according to Framework Licence: Compression and Understanding of Industrial Data (MPAI-CUI) V2.0 (N2131), alone or jointly with other IPR holders after the approval of the planned MPAI-CUI by the General Assembly and in no event after commercial implementations of MPAI-CUI become available on the market.
In case the respondent is a non-MPAI member, the submission shall mandatorily include the following text:
If (a part of) this submission is identified for inclusion in a specification, <Company> understands that <Company> will be requested to immediately join MPAI and that. If <Company> elects not to join MPAI, this submission will be discarded.
Subsequent technical contribution shall mandatorily include this text
<Member> submits this document to MPAI as a contribution to the development of the planned MPAI-CUI Technical Specification.
<Member> explicitly agrees to the steps of the MPAI standards development process defined in Annex 1 to the MPAI Statutes (N2115), in particular <Company> declares that <Company> or its successors will make available the terms of the Licence related to its Essential Patents according to the MPAI-CUI Framework Licence (N2131), alone or jointly with other IPR holders after the approval of the MPAI-CUI V2.0 Technical Specification by the General Assembly and in no event after MPAI-CUI V2.0 commercial implementations become available on the market.
