Minister of Research and Higher Education Oddmund Hoel (Sp) has announced that Sigma2 has been awarded up to 200 million NOK from the INFRASTRUCTURE program, the Research Council’s national initiative on infrastructure. The Portfolio Board for the Research System made the formal decision on September 25.
Photo: Earlier this week, Ministers Oddmund Hoel and Karianne Tung visited Sigma2 in Trondheim. They brought flowers and good news for Norwegian researchers. Here together with Sigma2's CEO, Gunnar Bøe, and Senior Project Manager Stein Inge Knarbakk.
The grant will benefit many disciplines, such as health, ocean research, and climate studies, and especially research in artificial intelligence (AI).
The funding will, among other things, co-finance a new national supercomputer, which will replace Norway’s most powerful supercomputer, Betzy, when it is decommissioned in just over two years.
- It is gratifying that a generic infrastructure like ours is being prioritized. The grant will benefit researchers across the country, as the national supercomputers are available regardless of which research institution one belongs to," says Gunnar Bøe, CEO of Sigma2.
- At the same time, it is important to emphasize that NOK 200 million is far from covering the real computing needs of Norwegian researchers in the coming years.
A Step in the Right Direction
In a report from the Research Council to the Ministry of Education, released a few weeks ago, the Research Council pointed out that investments of NOK 2.6 billion in computing power and artificial intelligence should be made over the next five years.
- 200 million is a step in the right direction, and we hope for further funding to meet the increasing demand for computing power from Norwegian researchers. The investments made today lead to research breakthroughs tomorrow, says Bøe.
There is intense international competition to offer the best possible research infrastructure and services to researchers, as this is also linked to the innovation pace in each country.
NOK 40 Million for AI Initiatives
Minister of Digitalisation and Public Administration Karianne Oldrenes Tung (Ap) also brought good news to Norwegian AI researchers, specifically to Norwegian language models. She announced an allocation of NOK 40 million for this purpose.
This is good news for continuing the work done in the Mimir project for Norwegian language models, where the National Library, NTNU, the University of Oslo, and Sigma2 had a unique collaboration.