AI Scientist · Executive · Full Professor (Catedrático)

Jose L.
Salmeron

● Scientist
Stanford Top 2%
Global Scientist

h-index 39 · 6,800+ citations · 200+ publications in ISI Web of Science. Three decades of peer-reviewed research in AI, federated learning and quantum computing.

● Executive
Chief AI & Quantum
Officer · Full Professor (Catedrático)

C-level leadership at tech and consultancy firms. Principal Investigator on €15M+ programmes. Deployed AI systems at Intel, Airbus, BBVA, Capgemini, Vodafone.

Thirty years operating at the boundary where frontier research meets industrial consequence — leading teams, securing funding, shipping systems that run in production, and publishing the science that makes the next generation possible.

Jose L. Salmeron
Current position
Chief AI & Quantum Officer
+ Professor of CS & AI, CUNEF Universidad
Top 2%Stanford Global Scientist Ranking
h · 39H-Index · ISI Web of Science
€15M+Funded research as PI
30 yrsResearch & industrial leadership
Scientific impact
Top 2%
Stanford Global Ranking
h · 39
H-Index
6,800+
Citations
200+
Publications
Industrial track record
€15M+
Funded as PI
8+
Global enterprises
C-level
Executive roles
3 cont.
Programmes led
01 — Background

Scientist. Executive. Builder.

2025 — present
Chief AI & Quantum Officer
Stealth Startup · Spain
2022 — present
Professor CS & AI (Catedrático)
CUNEF Universidad · Madrid
2019 — 2025
Principal AI & Quantum Scientist
Capgemini · Madrid
2018 — 2020
Lead Data Scientist
BBVA New Digital Business
2012 — 2022
Professor of Data Science (Catedrático)
Univ. Pablo de Olavide · Seville

I have spent three decades doing two things simultaneously that most people do one at a time: leading large-scale AI deployments in industry, and producing scientific research that advances the field. The combination is not incidental — it is the point.

On the industry side, I have occupied C-level and principal scientist roles at global organisations — Capgemini, BBVA, and now a stealth AI startup — leading technical teams, securing funding and delivering systems that operate in production. I have been principal investigator on programmes funded up to €15 million, managing the full arc from architecture to deployment across healthcare, finance, energy and defence.

On the scientific side, I hold the Cátedra — Spain's highest professorial rank — at CUNEF Universidad, and I am consistently ranked among the Stanford top 2% of scientists globally. With an h-index of 39 and over 6,800 citations from researchers in twenty countries, my work in explainable AI, federated learning, quantum computing and causal machine learning is among the most cited in each field.

The interaction between those two tracks is what makes both better. Research grounded in real operational constraints is more useful. Industry guided by rigorous science is more trustworthy. Boards and research councils alike have come to value that combination.

02 — Industrial leadership

Delivered at scale, across sectors

Capgemini
Principal AI & Quantum Scientist

Led the AI & Quantum practice across Europe. Architected and delivered federated AI systems for healthcare, energy and financial services clients. Principal investigator on EU-funded programmes totalling €15M+.

2019 – 2025
BBVA New Digital Business
Lead Data Scientist

Designed and deployed explainable AI systems for high-stakes financial decision making. Delivered audit-ready, regulator-facing AI across multiple jurisdictions — from model design to production rollout.

2018 – 2020
Stealth Startup
Chief AI & Quantum Officer

C-level executive responsibility for AI and quantum strategy, research direction, and technical delivery. Building the next generation of AI-native enterprise infrastructure from the ground up.

2025 – present
Intel · Cisco · Vodafone
AI Research Collaborations

Technical advisory and joint research programmes on federated computer vision, privacy-preserving distributed learning and network AI — delivering from research to pilot deployment.

Various
EU Next Generation · CDTI
Principal Investigator

PI on multiple nationally and EU-funded programmes in AI and health. Managing cross-institutional consortia, securing and administering competitive public funding, and delivering scientific and industrial outcomes on schedule.

€16M+ total
McGill University · Canadian CIHR
International Research PI

Led international research collaboration on quantum AI for clinical diagnostics. Demonstrated that quantum-inspired methods deliver interpretable, high-performance results from scarce healthcare datasets.

2024 – 2026
03 — Key projects

From architecture to production

€15.3M
2022–2024
EU Next Generation · Capgemini

Distributed AI for Early Disease Diagnosis in Aging Populations

As principal investigator, led architecture and delivery of a federated AI platform enabling early diagnosis of high-prevalence age-related diseases across distributed hospital networks — without centralising patient data. Managed a cross-European consortium from inception to production.

Federated LearningHealthcare AIXAIDistributed Systems
$250K
2024–2026
Canadian CIHR · McGill University

Quantum AI for Cardiovascular Risk Detection in Women

Quantum-inspired interpretable AI for early cardiovascular risk from scarce clinical datasets — demonstrating that explainability and predictive performance are not mutually exclusive, even in data-constrained clinical environments.

Quantum AIDigital TwinsClinical AIXAI
€1.25M
2020–2021
CDTI · Spanish Ministry of Science

COVIDSION — Federated AI for Pandemic Response

Federated, explainable AI platform for rapid pandemic response — from architecture to production in under 18 months. Designed as reusable public health infrastructure generalisable across disease contexts.

Federated AIPublic HealthXAI
2018–2019
BBVA New Digital Business

eXplainable AI for Financial Decision Systems at Scale

Design and production deployment of XAI systems for audit-ready financial decision-making at scale — addressing regulatory compliance requirements across multiple jurisdictions within a single unified architecture.

XAIFinanceRegulatory Compliance
04 — Research

Scientific record

Top 2%
Stanford Global Ranking · ISI Web of Science
h · 39
H-Index
6,800+
Citations · 20 countries
200+
ISI Web of Science publications
2026
Expert Systems with Applications
Model-agnostic post-hoc explainability for recommender systems
Arevalo & Salmeron
2025
Future Generation Computer Systems
Concurrent Vertical & Horizontal Federated Learning with Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
Salmeron & Arevalo
2025
Neurocomputing
Inverse simulation learning of Quasi-Nonlinear Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
Napoles, Salmeron & Salgueiro
2024
IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing
Chaotic maps-based privacy-preserving distributed deep learning for Non-IID datasets
Arevalo & Salmeron
2024
Journal of Big Data
Blind Federated Learning without initial model
Salmeron & Arevalo
2023
Mathematics
Variational Quantum Circuit topology grid search for post-surgical hypocalcemia
Salmeron & Fernández-Palop
Full publication record on Google Scholar →
Selected collaborations
Intel Airbus BBVA Capgemini Vodafone Cisco Microsoft McGill University Gilead
05 — Contact

Collaboration & engagement

I engage selectively with organisations and researchers working at the frontier of AI and quantum computing. Whether for a board-level or C-suite role, principal investigator position in a major funded programme, scientific collaboration, or a keynote at an executive or research forum — I am open to the conversation.

Areas of engagement
Chief AI Officer / Chief Quantum Officer
Board-Level AI Advisory
AI Strategy & Technology Roadmap
EU & National R&D Programme Leadership
Generative AI Architecture & Governance
XAI Audits for Regulated Industries
Research Collaboration & Co-authorship
Keynotes & Executive Scientific Programmes