Pioneering

- The purpose of the center is to develop groundbreaking theories, methods and technology for efficient and responsible use of data-driven artificial intelligence in innovative, industrial solutions, says Professor Jon Atle Gulla at the Department of Computer Technology and Informatics at NTNU, head of the new center NorwAI (Norwegian Research Center for AI Innovation). 

Digital transformation and AI Innovation

Artificial intelligence has the power to create fundamental changes in the digital transformation that Norway is currently facing. From data, values ​​will be forged. Researchers and students will work closely with the industrial partners and users. The companies decide the goals and tasks in the center, and their most demanding issues need to be in focus. NorwAI consists of both heavy, Norwegian industrial locomotives and younger, digitally born companies. 

-This is a centre for research-based innovation, and as the name implies, the objective is not just research but innovation, says Arne Jørgen Berre, chief research scientist at SINTEF, and also Innovation Director in NorwAI.

According to him, many fields of innovation were identified in connection with the establishment of NorwAI SFI, including on personification, understanding of Scandinavian languages and on intelligent digital twins.

-Close collaboration between prominent research communities, industry partners and public administrative bodies has proven to be an effective model for innovation, says Sven Størmer Thaulow, EVP & Chief Data and Technology Officer at Schibsted, also appointed chairman of the board for the newly established research centre NorwAI.  

- Through NorwAI, our engineering teams will be exposed to leading technology research, while at same time contributing to building and defining how Norway will work with the technology of tomorrow. Innovation is part of Schibsted´s DNA, and our hope is that being part of this collective intelligence will both benefit our industry as a whole, and unleash creativity and the creation of emerging technologies within our own engineering teams,” adds Thaulow. 

- The use of artificial intelligence requires real data in really large quantities. When we have a collaboration across industries and sectors that we now see in NorwAI, the various players can also gain access to massive datasets that will not only contribute to research, but also help the industry to build new tools and business models, says Jon Atle Gulla. 

Core area

NorwAI is funded by the Research Council of Norway and the partners together. Almost 300 million will be used for research, teaching and AI  innovation, and around 100 million of these are financed by the Research Council.  Research partners are NTNU, SINTEF, University ot Oslo, University of  Stavanger and the Norwegian Computing Center (NR).

NorwAI will be run for eight years. Getting a center for research-driven innovation is truly competitive, and is advertised only every five years, and who get through the eye of the needle are determined through rigorous evaluation by international scientific experts, panels for assessment of innovation and value creation, and a separate relevance assessment carried out by the Research Council of Norway. AI (artificial intelligence) as a disruptive force has been and will continuously be a core area for a Norway facing digital transformation. A national center for AI like NorwAI is important for most other technologies. 

- Artificial intelligence is a very special technology in this way: It is generic, and you can use it for almost anything. But we see time and time again that if you manage to create a good product in one industry, it is often directly applicable in other industries as well, says Gulla. 

Different interests - common platform

Actors such as Schibsted, NRK, Telenor, Retriever, Retriever, Sparebank1 SMN and DnB will be interested in individualized content and services based on Norwegian language models - not just imported services from abroad. Others, such as DNV-GL, TrønderEnergi, Kongsberg, Telenor and Cognite, can use sensor-based, intelligent layers on top of digital twins to simulate situations and act when results and outputs ​​go in the wrong direction. Artificial intelligence enables machines to understand, evaluate and analyze, learn along the way, and help us make decisions. 

Artificial intelligence requires skills. NorwAI will contribute to an ecosystem for artificial intelligence. Among the partners in NorwAI is therefore also DigitalNorway, which will build bridges to a broader set of Norwegian business and industry. 

Trust and openness

- With many AI solutions today, you only get one answer out, while there is usually a lack of identification for how the machine arrived at the answer - because one either does not understand or the machine does not provide any insight into the basis for the decision. In order to use artificial intelligence widely in society, the ability to explain the decisions and outputs are therefore paramount, says Jon Atle Gulla. 

This is closely linked to privacy. AI will for this reason let ethics be a leading guideline and live up to the European vision of an open, sustainable and trustworthy technology, while machines become so important to society.