The Nordic AI Cup 2026 brought together the winners of the national AI competitions in the five Nordic countries, for a final showdown in Reykjavík, Iceland. Held as a side event to the Nordic AI Meet 2026, the competition gave the national champions an opportunity to demonstrate their AI skills, compete against one another and connect with the wider Nordic AI community.
Senior Advisor at NORA, Geir Halnes, takes us through three eventful days with the Nordic AI research community in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Students from across the Nordic countries competed in the Nordic AI Cup from 17 to 20 September. The online competition is arranged by the Nordic AI Partnership, and challenged participants to develop AI solutions to real-world problems.
NORA is pleased to announce the winners of the BatterySwapAI 2026 - a challenge developed in collaboration with Soundsensing to explore how artificial intelligence can support smarter and more efficient battery maintenance.
During Arendalsuka, the new, nantional collaboration arena for artificial intelligence was officially launched. NORA and Digital Norway will be leading the partnership, with the goal of strengthening the collaboration between Norwegian AI reasearch, industry and public sector.
Following a successful debut at Arendalsuka last year, the NORA Artificial Intelligence Tent (AI Tent) returned to Arendal this year. Throughout the week, the tent brought together researchers, policymakers, industry representatives and the wider public to discuss some of the most important opportunities and challenges surrounding AI in Norway.
In New York, money never sleeps. In Silicon Valley, coding agents never sleep—as long as you have tokens.
The Research Council of Norway has funded the establishment of a new, national arena for cooperation on artificial intelligence. The arena will strengthen the connection between research, industry and the public sector, and contribute to more Norwegian AI competence being put into practice.
During the NORA Annual Conference 2026 in Oslo, we presented our annual awards, recognising outstanding contributions to AI in Norway. The awards honour individuals and organisations that have demonstrated excellence in research, innovation, community building, diversity, and societal impact across the Norwegian AI ecosystem.
Each year, the NORA Awards highlight how AI development in Norway is driven not only by scientific excellence, but also by collaboration, responsibility, and societal engagement. This year’s winners represent the very best of what the Norwegian AI ecosystem can achieve when research, innovation, and public value come together.
Researchers, innovators, policymakers, students, and industry representatives gathered in Oslo on 1–2 June for the NORA Annual Conference 2026, hosted by the University of Oslo at the National Museum. This year’s conference highlighted the growing strength of the Norwegian AI ecosystem through keynote talks, national AI centre presentations, panel discussions, startup contributions, and poster sessions spanning research, education, governance, and innovation.
Launch of NAIP-HS – Nordic AI Partnership for Humanity and Society
National academic AI initiatives in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their collaboration and amplify the role of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in AI research. The partnership aims to create a unified Nordic voice that can advise policy makers and ensure that the transformative effects of AI on society is aligned with human-centric and democratic values. The leaders of the partners met in Oslo on 8 June, 2026, to sign the MoU.
We're proud to present the winner of Best Poster at the NORA Annual Conference 2026: Md Sazidur Rahman and his team of co-authors Kjersti Engan, Kathinka Dæhli Kurz and Mahdieh Khanmohammadi, with their poster on Bi-Temporal Image-Driven Acute Stroke Evolution Analysis!
After a successful first year of the Artificial Intelligence-tent ("KI-teltet") at Arendalsdalsuka last year, we are returning this year for another great week of insightful and interesting discussions and presentations on all things AI!
At NORA's general assembly on 27 April, the 17 partners and owners chose a new board to lead the collaboration. Laurence Habib (OsloMet) was elected Chair of the Board. The new board represents broad expertise across disciplines, sectors and institutions, and will have a central role in the continued development of NORA as a national collaboration on research, education and innvation within artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping economies and power structures worldwide. That was the key message from a breakfast seminar hosted by NORA and the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency (Digdir) this week.
- It has been another eventful year in AI, marked by agentive AI systems and a strong focus on AI in governance and security. The rapid development makes NORA’s role of strengthening the voice of the AI research community, fostering collaboration nationally and internationally, and advancing AI research, education and innovation, increasingly important.
AI is no longer the future we're preparing for. It's a present we're already living in — shaping how public services are delivered, how decisions get made, and whose voices get heard. That was the starting point for Women in AI - From Algorithm to Action: Living in the AI Era, an event hosted by NORA, and what unfolded over the course of the afternoon was richer, more challenging, and more energizing than we could have anticipated.
NORA's Annual Conference takes place in a new city each year, co-hosted by one of the 17 NORA partners. In 2026, we're meeting up in Oslo, but the location for 2027 is yet to be decided - will it be your city and institution?
Do you know someone who deserves recognition for exceptional efforts in the Norwegian AI community this past year? Nominate them for a NORA award!
Researchers from Simula and SimulaMet have published a new report assessing the safety of large language models when used in Norwegian societal and public-sector contexts.
There is no better sign that a new year has started, than Tromsø hosting the Northern Light Deep Learning (NLDL) Conference. This year, the conference welcomed 175 participants from the global research community to exchange ideas, encourage collaborations and present cutting-edge research.
The conference consisted of both a main event from January 6th – 8th and a winter school from January 5th – 9th, in addition to two industry events.
"Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration!" - that's the echo of the opening words from last year's Christmas greeting, and they are just as relevant this year. It's easy to get a bit of AI-FOMO, but sometimes it's better to be left at the station if the train is going in the wrong direction. We can still influence the direction of the AI technology to reflect the values we want, and that is why coordinated, national collaboration is important. In 2026, NORA will continue to strengthen Norwegian research, education and innovation within AI, among other things through national research schools, arenas for knowledge sharing and a strong Nordic collaboration through the Nordic AI Partnership.
In March 2025, NORA received funding for the Research School for Humanities and Society (NORA-HS). The Research School aims to unite PhD students across Norway who study how Artificial Intelligence impacts people, culture and society, while raising the quality of PhD education in this field to a leading European standard. We are proud to annouce that the Research School is now operational!
In a drive to bring academia and industry closer, NORA Research School and NORA Startup hosted the knowledge‑sharing event Innovate Together: Academia Meets Industry in collaboration with UiB AI at the UiB Learning Arena in Bergen. The event — attended by more than 40 researchers and PhD candidates — focused on equipping early‑career researchers with the skills and perspectives needed to transform research into practical applications and to explore careers in industry.
Good vibes within the Nordic AI Partnership! Last week we had a joint booth at the EurIPS conference in Copenhagen. Thank you to all partners for a great experience and lots of useful exchanges of information and ideas. And thank you to the EurIPS organizers for delivering such a major conference and making it a success in such a short time.
