10 December 2024

Sweden has been selected to host one of seven European AI Factories that will strengthen the EU’s competitiveness in the field. The AI Factory combines a state-of-the-art AI-optimised supercomputer with support for education, research and innovation. The National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS) will be responsible for the AI Factory, with Linköping University acting as host and Rise as collaboration partner.

Lots of cables connected to a computer.
The National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS) will be responsible for the AI Factory, Photographer: THOR BALKHED

The focus of the Swedish AI Factory, which has been named Mimer, will be on increased AI expertise in the life sciences, medicine, materials science, autonomous systems and the gaming industry, all areas where Europe, and Sweden in particular, are prominent.

In addition to the Swedish AI factory, six more are to be established with different focus areas. Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg and Greece are the other countries selected by EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), which is a European partnership. The placement of an AI Factory in Sweden is a result of the collaboration between NAISS and Rise, where the Swedish Research Council, Vinnova and the Government provided co-funding.

Access to hardware

The goal is to provide a state-of-the-art AI infrastructure and expertise for research and innovation. The AI Factory will thus be a natural point of contact where both industry and academia can quickly access hardware, training and support for AI applications.

“This means that Sweden is among the first countries to implement the European Commission’s concept of AI Factories to drive research and innovation forward and make AI accessible to more users than ever before,” says Matts Karlsson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research at Linköping University.

The AI Factory Mimer will offer resources for training, implementation and delivery of advanced AI models. The associated new supercomputer is developed specifically for AI work and can handle large amounts of training data. In addition, it offers secure management of sensitive data and cloud-based access models for maximum user-friendliness.

“This is an extremely important step to strengthen AI use in research and industry. The project will start immediately, and the long-term ambition is to contribute to both national and European AI strategies and attract strong AI users from across Europe,” says Matts Karlsson.

About NAISS

NAISS (National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden) is a national infrastructure responsible for advanced computing resources and data management for Swedish researchers. Linköping University hosts NAISS on behalf of the Swedish Research Council and gathers expertise from across higher education institutions to support research and innovation in a variety of scientific areas.

Read more: eurohpc-ju.europa.eu

Contact

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