The focus is on young researchers and excellent AI research. The meeting is also a great opportunity for leaders in the Nordic academic AI networks to meet and discuss the future of AI in the Nordics; Pioneer Centre for AI (Denmark), Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (Finland), WASP – Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (Sweden) and NORA (Norway).
Some inspiring take-homes from the meeting:
✔️ Felix Stollenwerk from AI Sweden gave a talk on open-source LLMs for Sweden, the Nordic countries and Europe. He covered how AI Sweden develop their language models and why it is important for the Swedish public sector to have their own, home-made language models. It’s not as much a question of performance, but more a question of having full control of both the model and the licensing when you build a model that will become an infrastructure for public services in Sweden. This is what is called Sovereign AI!
✔️ Robindra Prabhu from NAV, the Norwegian labour and welfare administration, had an excellent talk titled “Beyond words - will transformers transform public services?” Robindra showed many experimental projects they have in NAV, and some projects already out in production. It is interesting to note that in Norway NAV is responsible for many services that are typically divided between many organizations in other countries. This is definitely an advantage, both when it comes to data and building organizational competence within AI. The examples Robindra showed on how LLMs and RAGs will increase the quality of NAV’s services were impressive. They have been experimenting with many different models, including commercial models and NORALLM. We should also take note that in Norway and the Nordic countries, many of the interesting AI projects are within the public sector.
✔️ Peter Sarlin appeared in a fireside chat. Peter is the CEO and Co-Founder of Silo AI, recently acquired by AMD. (The all-cash transaction was valued at more than NOK 7 billion!). It is inspiring to hear how Peter and others have built Silo AI with a strong research culture and a very close link to the Finnish and Nordic research communities. Many projects and models have been converted to value, such as the Poro and Viking LLMs.
We will continue strengthening the Nordic AI collaborations. The future of AI in the Nordics is bright!
