How Nordic Countries are Joining Forces on AI

Can new Nordic AI centre propel startups and companies?

Author

Peter Juel Jensen
September 06, 2024

Pioneer AI: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse

Welcome to Pioneer AI’s newsletter, The Nordic AI Pulse.

We are a Nordics-focused AI investment fund.

We track, share, and analyse information and insights on Nordic-related AI news, deals, and trends.

📚 In This Issue:

  1. Nordic Countries are Joining Forces on AI

  2. Nordic AI News

  3. Nordic AI Funding News

  4. Podcast Insights

  5. Upcoming: Nordic AI Events You Shouldn't Miss

Nordic Countries are Joining Forces on AI

Going it together

What happened: The Nordic countries are creating a regional AI centre.

Sweden’s Minister for the Interior, Erik Slotner, described the centre’s benefits thusly:

“A strengthened cooperation in AI matters benefits competitiveness throughout the Nordics while contributing to a responsible and sustainable development of the technology.”

The new centre, spearheaded by stakeholders from Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, will be located in Sweden and run by AI Sweden.

It aims to create a unified platform for advancing AI technologies across the Nordic countries and focus on fostering cooperation between industry, academia, and government to drive innovation and tackle pressing societal issues, such as healthcare, sustainability, and digital transformation.

Reports in Swedish and Norwegian media on the new centre.

Why it matters: The Nordic region is home to some 28 million people whose robust buying power, positive attitude to new technology, and high salary levels help make it fertile ground for AI solutions. There is a flourishing AI startup scene, and combining forces across the region with a new AI centre makes a lot of sense.

However, it remains to be seen how exactly the new centre will work - and how it can support AI companies, startups, and businesses across the region.

What AI startups and established firms alike need is benefits like stronger networks and access to shared infrastructure and research. What we need to avoid is the new centre overly focusing on rules and regulations around AI, which could end up being more detrimental than beneficial to Nordic AI companies.

What do you think? Any comments or thoughts? Let us know via email or contact us on the Pioneer AI LinkedIn page here. 

Nordic News Roundup

  • How Danish high school (gymnasium) students are embracing AI. [DK] (TV2)

  • Over a third of Norwegian municipalities have used AI solutions in the past year. [NO] (NRK)

  • What is “Open Source AI”? We are one step closer to a clear answer. [SE] (Computer Sweden)

  • Norwegian digitisation minister lays out how AI should be regulated in Norway. [NO] (NRK)

  • Stockholm is home to the only Nordic AI company to make Andreessen Horowitz’s list of top 100 Gen AI consumer apps. (A16Z)

  • How this Danish festival used AI to control and direct many thousands of visitors. [DK] (TV2)

  • Norwegian leaders and managers “need an AI driver’s license.” [NO] (FinansFokus)

  • Is the interest in AI on the wane in Sweden? [SE] (Realtid)

  • Companies are working out how to balance AI investments and sustainability targets. [NO] (Digi)

  • How the EU’s new AI regulation moves will impact countries, companies, and individuals is starting to become clear. [SE] (Resume)

🚀AI Funding News🚀

Select Nordic AI-related deals, investments, acquisitions and insights. 

Congratulations to all of the founders and teams!

Pioneer AI’s top Nordic AI funding insights and highlights:

1: Turning the Sunday league into the Premier League

SportsAI raised €1.6 million in seed funding. The company aims to “democratize access to high-quality sports data, making professional-grade analysis available to all players, broadcasters, and brands.” Previously, high-quality data and analysis have only been available to major sports organisations with deep pockets. That could be about to change thanks to AI - and the market for such solutions, at the right price point, is huge.

2: AI is supporting impactful careers

Impactpool’s impressive €3.6 million in Series A funding is a testament to how AI is impacting career and hiring processes. Through its AI-powered solutions, the company focuses on placing professionals with impact-driven organisations. This vertical focus (which we believe is a necessity for almost all AI startups) matches the Nordic job market’s priorities. Using the region as a sandbox for building solutions and then moving toward international expansion looks like a sound market strategy.

3: Helping with HR’s avalanche problem

Similarly to Impactpool, Jobilla’s €6M in new funding is tied to jobs and careers. In this case, the focus is assisting HR with sifting through candidate screening and job application processes and identifying the optimal fits. This eases the burden on HR departments and hiring directors, as these processes are increasingly becoming something of a AI vs. AI scenario, as more and more job seekers are turning to artificial intelligence for help with CVs, cover letters, etc.

🎧Listen To🎧

Nordic AI news and analysis for your ears.

  • Teknologi og mennesker [NO] - Five public organisations, including tax authorities, the police and hospitals, share their concrete AI initiatives and learnings.

  • Prompt [DK] - What is happening with the seeming lack of guardrails around Elon Musk’s AI image solution Grok 2?

  • AI Sweden Podcast [SE] - How can we work proactively with AI in ways that save lives?

📅Training, Meetups & Conferences📅

Conferences

  • October 14-18: Process Mining Conference 2024: Industry and scientific conference on process mining. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • October 18: IMA AI Conference: The 50th International Management Assistants Conference will examine the state of the industry and potential disruptions by AI. [Stockholm, Sweden]

  • October 21-22: Nordic AI Meet: Symposium early-career AI researchers to network, collaborate, exchange ideas, and form a Nordic approach to building AI solutions for the societal good. [Helsinki, Finland]

  • October 21-23: D3A: The Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI brings together a diverse audience to explore the latest trends and research in AI. [Nyborg, Denmark]

Meetups

Do you know an event, meetup or similar that you think should be on the list? Let me know!

Got an AI story or insight from the Nordics? Share it with me!

Reply to this email or connect on LinkedIn.

Until next time,

Pioneer Venture AI,