Finland is a recognized leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and a technology powerhouse in Europe. Nonetheless, since the population is barely 5.5 million, attracting overseas talent is taken into account a very important task.

Sari Lindblom, president of the University of Helsinki, Finland's technology core, and Sass Tarkoma, dean of the Faculty of Science, recently visited Korea. They emphasized, “The University of Helsinki has one of the best environment where Korea's outstanding students can study cutting-edge AI technology in a superb educational environment.”

To begin with, he introduced that Finland's AI infrastructure is at a world-class level. He explained that he’s striving to turn into a number one country in AI throughout society, not only by developing technology but additionally by constructing infrastructure and providing free AI education to all residents.

Specifically, the University of Helsinki is Finland's largest and oldest academic institution and a number one university in AI research. Research is being conducted in a wide selection of fields, from AI and machine learning research to data mining, AI semiconductors, and materials engineering.

They announced that they’re preparing various educational programs for international students to draw excellent talent within the AI ​​field. He introduced that excellent Korean students can study in various master's and doctoral degree programs without language barriers.

“The University of Helsinki is a comprehensive university with a protracted history, and two-thirds of its master's courses in over 70 major subjects are taught in English. Korean students, particularly, have a high academic zeal, so that they adapt well to classes and achieve excellent grades. “

President Lindblum said that tuition for doctoral programs is free, and that students can attend about 240 of the 1,000 postdoctoral (Ph.D.) programs supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education while receiving a stipend.

“You possibly can study free of charge on the University of Helsinki's doctoral program and receive a salary for 3 years. After you receive your doctorate, we offer support to attach you with Finnish industry and supply employment opportunities.”

It was also revealed that the university has formed partnerships with Seoul National University, Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Yonsei University to run exchange student programs and perform various research collaborations.

Dean Tarcoma explained, “Korean universities are well-equipped with excellent scholars and cutting-edge infrastructure,” and added, “Finland and Korea are cooperating not only within the fields of space science, electron microscopy, materials science, and semiconductors, but additionally within the fields of bio and medicine.” did.

He’s the Dean of the Faculty of Science on the University of Helsinki and an AI expert, and in addition introduced the information, semiconductor, and energy industries that support Finland's AI industry.

Finland is a standard IT powerhouse that produced corporations similar to Nokia, and is quickly responding to the AI ​​transition by being the primary country within the EU to announce a national AI strategy. With the goal of 'human happiness', we’re implementing an 'AI Smart City' strategy that gives personalized services by applying AI to AI education for all residents and public services needed for every citizen's life cycle.

Specifically, in November of last yr, it was the primary European country to create a large-scale language model (LLM) in its own language, making it well generally known as a number one country in 'sovereign AI'. 'Poro', which suggests reindeer in Finnish, is an LLM created by Silo AI, a personal AI research institute, and has an analogous level of performance to 'GPT-3.5' with 34.2 billion parameters. It’s also the primary model designed to cover all official languages ​​of the European Union (EU).

He said that the project to create a model to know Finland's culture and language was vital when it comes to digital sovereignty, nevertheless it was tough to secure data. Dean Tarkoma explained that it took time because there was not much online content in Finnish, but in the long run, they were capable of construct a high-quality dataset and construct a Finnish language model.

The University of Helsinki can be curious about semiconductor research, which is the muse of the AI ​​industry, and has 50 researchers within the fields of materials and atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology.

“Finland doesn’t have a foundry like Samsung Electronics or SK Hynix, but corporations like Nokia have traditionally paid great attention to chip design. We look ahead to expanding cooperation and influence between Korea and Finland within the AI ​​semiconductor field.”

Specifically, he emphasized that it has one of the best infrastructure for AI education. Students studying on the University of Helsinki give attention to experiments using supercomputers, and the college secures a lot of GPUs to support machine learning research.

Dean Tarkoma said, “Finland is definitely an appropriate environment for constructing a knowledge center,” adding, “One in every of Google’s data centers is in Finland, and Microsoft’s data center can be under construction.”

As well as, he said that he has strengths in 'sustainable AI', similar to the energy issues that include running a supercomputer. He said, “Europe's fastest supercomputer 'LUMI' is operated solely on renewable energy. By placing the information center in Kayani, a chilly region, not only does it utilize natural cooling devices, nevertheless it also absorbs the warmth generated from the information center. “It’s used for district heating,” he explained.

He added that the University of Helsinki can be “investing heavily in research on sustainability and is researching mathematical models to extend energy efficiency.”

President Lindblum concluded by saying, “The University of Helsinki and the Finnish government are providing loads of support to excellent international students,” and emphasized, “The University of Helsinki will likely be opportunity for Korean students who wish to give attention to AI research.”

Meanwhile, the University of Helsinki not only boasts world-class levels in science and engineering fields similar to ▲AI/computer science ▲quantum computing ▲cancer research, but can be conducting various research in social sciences and humanities. Enrollment is obtainable in August and January every yr.

Reporter Park Soo-bin sbin08@aitimes.com