They are lifting Sweden's AI initiative

Greek Apostolia Tsirikoglu from Thessaloniki is one of the researchers who was attracted to contribute to Sweden's record investment in AI, which we have talked about earlier here.

- I think it is exciting that we can create our own data to make the outside world more understandable, she says.

She shows a movie from a city that looks just like a real city, but where everything from intersections and cars to mailboxes and cyclists are generated by synthetic data.

Apostolia Tsirikoglu and her colleagues at Linköping University are researching synthetic images, to improve the possibility of, for example, diagnosing cancer, or as in the video, to help the car industry.

- This helps self-driving cars to recognize themselves in the terrain. There are not enough high-quality images from, for example, city traffic to teach the cars everything they need to, she says.

How far we have left before Volvo and other car manufacturers launch their first fully self-driving vehicles, she does not know, previous forecasts have been optimistic. But one thing is Apostolia Tsirikoglu sure.

- I definitely feel that I'm part of something big here.

Martin Monperrus is a professor of software development and recruited by the WASP program from Rennes, France. He and his doctoral students at KTH in Stockholm use Swedish supercomputer power for their advanced calculations with the help of artificial intelligence.

The goal is to find methods that allow computer programs to adapt themselves, without the help of developers.

- What we are trying to do is to automatically fix bugs - to automatically prepare computer programs.

But software learning to identify bugs yourself, and fixing them, doesn't mean that all developers lose their jobs in the future, says Martin Monperrus.

- On the contrary. We have far too much software, too many bugs and too few developers. The artificial intelligence that now helps us get more stable computer systems will only remedy parts of the developer shortage.

30s top recruits to Sweden

The government has previously been criticized for Sweden lagging behind other European countries in the AI ​​field.

But with the top 30 recruiting of professors and senior lecturers within the framework of the Wallenberg-funded research program Wasp, the tone has changed a bit.

And Martin Monperrus is optimistic.

- Sweden is good at getting the academy and industry to work together. This collaboration is unique and can serve as a model for how other countries can achieve great technological success - despite being a small country, says Martin Monperrus.

He hopes to stay in Sweden.

- It is not easy to find research environments where everything just falls into place. Where the research is of high quality, where the students are good enough, and where there are resources to carry out important research. Everything there is here, says Martin Monperrus, professor at KTH.