Norwegian AI Strategy Short Summary

If you want a complete and quick summary of the Norwegian AI strategy here is all you need to know in a few paragraphs, followed by a link to an article I have written if you want to go deeper.

The Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation’s published document the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence on the 14th of January 2020.

This work was founded upon the agreement the 10th of April 2018, when there were 25 European countries that signed a Declaration of cooperation on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Norway was one of the countries that did so and already the 22nd of June 2018 a report called Artificial intelligence and privacy was published by The Norwegian Data Protection Authority (DPA). Another report was published the 31st of August 2018 named Digital21 — a strategy for Norway by an actor-driven national collaboration on a mission from the government to promote scientific value creation and development in important areas of society, AI was one of the pivotal areas outline. This brought a wide engagement from industry, academia and government. On the 26th of November 2018 a report was written by the Norwegian Board of Technology called Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities, Challenges and a Plan for Norway.

Thus prior to the launch of the strategy, there was a growing engagement for artificial intelligence in Norway from different sectors as well as from government agencies. Over 2019 the Minister of Digitalisation travelled around in Norway (March-September) to get suggestions from different communities. Additionally, there were close to 50 written statements from a variety of businesses and government agencies that sought to give comments to what the strategy should contain.

The National AI Strategy in Norway launched the 14th of January 2020 has a focus on both the public and private sector. Sharing of data is a theme that runs through the report and it provides examples of large scale cooperation already present in the oil industry. The report opens with the urgent call to address the climate crisis and the need to shift towards more sustainability. The minister of digitalisation who released the report has recently also taken the role as a minister of sustainability in Norway. Key focal points for government in the industry is the maritime and off-shore industries.

The government is stressing the rights of citizens in the report with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (DPA) being an important entity, however it also stresses that beneficial use of data for society is the right of the citizens and the state must strive to make the lives better this being paramount. As such data sharing can be imposed if necessary if it is for the benefit of Norwegian citizens for reasons of ‘public interest’. Privacy and methods for sharing data is a section, with examples of the regulatory sandbox such as provided for the testing of autonomous ships (a fjord is dedicated to this pursuit, mentioned elsewhere by the minister Nikolai Astrup).

The Norwegian government wants Norway to become an attractive destination for data centres. There is an expressed support for The international collaboration EuroHPC is mentioned (HPC — High Performance Computing) in the report. Elements of AI is a course that originated in Finland and has been translated to Norwegian, and Norway will compete in the #AIchallenge issued in the Nordics, this same course is being translated currently to all other languages for EU member states (Norway is not an EU member state, rather a member of European Economic Area). Ethics is a section in the strategy, with Norway adopting framework from EU (Trustworthy AI) and the principles from UN and OECD.

-National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence published on the 14th of January 2020

Here is an overview I have written that goes more in-depth published in Towards Data Science: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-norwegian-national-strategy-for-artificial-intelligence-has-launched-1a7ba2d5406d?source=friends_link&sk=5ba0526ae6edbb38538a8a14c72b931c