Finland has everything it needs to turn AI into a new national success story. However, the success will require a bold move away from the prevailing efficiency trend. Sustainable added value can only be created if the focus of AI use shifts to developing new service and product innovations. This will require a combination of world-class research, industry-specific competence and risk financing.
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- Finland possesses strong AI research capabilities and infrastructure exemplified by initiatives like FCAI, Business Finland funded projects, and the establishment of new AI professorships that strengthened the foundation in the field.
- To maximise impact, closing the gap between research and commercial application is vital, as demonstrated by successful Finnish companies employing innovative AI technologies.
- AI-fuelled innovations have the potential to enact breakthroughs in unexpected fields like material research, which could reduce reliance on critical raw materials amidst geopolitical realities.
This summary is written by AI and checked by a human.
Currently, most of the discussion about using AI centres on improving efficiency. The Nordic State of AI report published by AI Finland in February confirms this trend – nearly all AI use aims at optimising operations. If companies use AI to improve the efficiency of their processes by a couple of percentage points, we can be sure that companies elsewhere will get exactly the same results with the same tools.
Simply implementing generative AI is not a short-cut to increasing national wealth, and it should not be considered a strategic goal. It will not give us the desired competitive edge. Simply increasing efficiency leads to a decrease in jobs, which has a negative impact on the economy unless new and different jobs are created at the same time. More automation of routine administrative work would of course be a positive development – especially in the social and health care sector.
Finland has a strong tradition in AI research that dates back to the 1970s. Our technical and scientific competence in the field is excellent. The Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI) is our national AI flagship, bringing together more than 400 researchers from Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and VTT to work on basic AI research and applications. In recent years, Business Finland funding has been used to implement dozens of R&D projects as cooperation between companies, VTT, universities and universities of applied sciences. The AI Finland network established last year at the initiative of companies now has 400 member companies.
Furthermore, important steps have recently been taken in the area of basic AI research. An Ellis Institute unit is being established in Finland, which in practice means several new professorships at universities. A donation made by the foundation of Peter Sarlin, who founded Silo AI, also supports the establishment of 13 new AI professorships. The AI factory being built around CSC’s LUMI supercomputer will increase computing capacity. All of this puts us on a solid foundation.
The problem is the gap between research and companies, which means that the impact of high-quality basic research on commercial products and society is not even close to what it should be. This phenomenon was identified in a comparative study of the AI sector in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Growth companies are natural drivers when it comes to innovations. In terms of established companies, the drivers are the ones willing to take a risk and change their business by using new technology. Finland already has several examples of companies whose success is based on the innovative application of AI technologies, including Supercell, RELEX and ICEYE and a number of medical imaging companies. In the ideal situation envisioned by Peter Sarlin, Finland would quickly develop a vibrant commercial ecosystem around the academic AI cluster – similar to what has happened in Paris.
AI use can produce innovations in surprising sectors, such as material research. In our current geopolitical situation, using AI to achieve a breakthrough in material science that reduced dependency on critical raw materials would be a ground-breaking development. Developing materials and methods that could replace or minimise the need for rare earth metals would be particularly beneficial. Some AI projects with this goal are already in progress.
Finland has good starting points and a unique opportunity to create successful innovations by combining high-quality AI research and sector-specific research with business acumen and risk financing.
We can still decide whether our investments in the future of AI put us on the winning or losing side.
Heikki Ailisto is VTT's Research Professor and member of the Steering Group at Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence FCAI.
