NAIC
The AI community are joining forces to establish powerful AI infrastructure
The Norwegian AI community has joined forces to establish a national AI infrastructure with the support of the Norwegian Research Council.
The AI community in Norway is thriving, with companies and researchers increasingly applying AI methods and exploring the possibilities that the technology can create. Currently however, those that are in the forefront of applying AI are mainly larger organizations in academia and research, as these are able to provide the necessary resources by themselves. While knowledge and ideas flourish in smaller research communities and start-ups, it can be challenging for those to make use of AI due to a lack of computing resources and access to data.
The need for AI capacity in Norway is thus increasing. Today, we mainly have local infrastructure setups, which is not ideal when the aim is to increase research collaboration with external partners. Moreover, an integrated setup is also better from an environmental and a competence point of view.
The Norwegian AI community has acknowledged these challenges, and a total of 7 partners have joined forces to establish a new national infrastructure for AI, namely the "Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Cloud (NAIC)". The funding of the infrastructure was recently secured after approval of the partners' application to the Norwegian Research Council. This means that the most powerful AI infrastructure in the country will be a reality.
The University of Oslo is the project leader, with partners UiB, NTNU, UiT, UiA, Sigma 2, Simula and NORCE. The partners applied for 73,8 MNOK in funding from the Research Council, and including contributions from the project partners the total amount for the proposed infrastructure is 99,1 MNOK. The funding, of which the complete amount will be a result of negotiations with the Research Council, will be invested in an e-infrastructure providing a broad service portfolio to meet the needs of partners of different shapes and sizes, in academia, the public sector and in business.
NAIC will be the most powerful AI infrastructure in Norway and will open opportunities for Norwegian research excellence and international level, by increasing computational power and facilitating the sharing of data. Moreover, the project will not only invest in computing, but also in competence-building and training related to the infrastructure.
