New National AI Cloud funded: Providing compute power on demand

Norway steps up cloud storage

Digital tools have revolutionized our ability to collect, manage, and process vast amounts of data. Traditional tools are falling short, and a new methodology of data driven science has emerged.

-     We aim to host such open-sourced models as part of the infrastructure, freeing up time for the researcher to work on the tasks that require genuine intelligence, manager Gard Olav Sundby Thomassen at the University of Oslo argued in the application for the infrastructure. 

The Norwegian Research Council responding by inviting partners to establish Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Cloud, theNAIC. In the December release of infrastructure funding the consortium is guaranteed up to 71 MNOK for the 2022-2025 period. 

-     Such an offering would also be of great help to researchers who do not themselves work on projects where they have their own data scientist, thus enabling them to conduct more complex types of analysis without the need to hire extra staff or spend significant amounts of time and resources on learning complex computational methods and programming, Gard Olav Sundby Thomassen also argued. 

The infrastructure revolves around highly advanced analysis via machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL) and the training of models of artificial intelligence (AI). NAIC is led by the University of Oslo and Uninett Sigma2, with involvement of other NorwAI partners NTNU and SINTEF. 

The consortium believes that the initiative will be instrumental for Norway to reach the governmental AI strategy goals and to achieve a competitive egde in international AI in the years to come. 

-    A core part of NAIC will be an investment in and AI GPC Cluster Computational Infrastructure with associated storage services, supported by relevant services, says SINTEF’s chief researcher Arne Jørgen Berre, (photo) innovation director of NorwAI. 

-    This infrastructure will be of great help for NorwAI’s ambitions, he adds. 

The primary objective of NAIC - Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Cloud - is to connect leading expertise and create a national e-infrastructure with a broadservice portofolio national e-infrastructure with a broadservice portfolio tailored to AI needs (computing power & competence) of academia, public administration and SMEs/large industry. 

NAIC will support AI research on a national level to achieve excellence by providing capabilities and competence, educational programmes, user support and traning to increase the usability of AI in Norway. 
 
The secondary objective is to address the importance of data within AI research as described in the national AI strategy. NAIC by itself and through joining existingconsortium services will educate users, promote methods and make services available to create, deposit and share high quality FAIR datasets. 
 
The new consortium is a national effort also bringing together other AI competence centers in Norway with University of Bergen, NORCE, University of Tromsø and University of Agder. 

UNINETT Sigma2 has the strategic responsibility for and operates the national e-infrastructure for computational science in Norway. UNINETT Sigma2 offer services in HPC (High Performance Computing) and storage of scientific data. Through the e-infrastructure, Norwegian researchers and research institutions gain access to some of the world's most powerful computers.