AIKA

AIKA

Development of AIKA Arctic Data Intelligence and Supercomputing Ecosystem in Kainuu

Companies in the Kainuu region could benefit greatly from the opportunities arising from digital transformation, data economy, and digital and green transition. However, especially SMEs in Kainuu require comprehensive support to drive digitalization, to deploy new digital technologies, services and service management processes. It is also important to operate them in a sustainable way.

The AIKA Ecosystem (Arctic Data Intelligence and Supercomputing Ecosystem) answers to the needs of digitalisation and will be developed and expanded towards a nationally and internationally recognized ecosystem with a Digital Innovation Hub status granted by the European Commission. This main objective is further divided into six sub-objectives:

  1. To develop the AIKA ecosystem into a competence center, where ecosystem members produce and provide services to companies in North and Eastern Finland and later nationally and internationally.
  2. To pilot the services of the ecosystem through selected company pilot projects
  3. To build and strengthen the competences of ecosystem actors, especially in the Kainuu region.
  4. To seek new partners for the ecosystem and develop and test new partnership models to drive digitalisation and to establish value chains for applying data analytics and artificial intelligence
  5. To support and promote the usage of LUMI EuroHPC supercomputer through the ecosystem
  6. To build a strong brand image for Kainuu region’s expertise in data analytics and high performance computing and to combine existing competences of related actors in Kainuu.

The project will facilitate digital transition of the Kainuu region by establishing new data-driven solutions for business and industry, by building connections to national and international networks, and by planning for long-term exploitation of the AIKA Ecosystem. It also supports the Implementation plan of Kainuu Regional Programme and the Smart Specification Strategy.

The project objectives support also CSC's operations and growth in Kajaani. One specific CSC objective is to increase the awareness of the companies in North and Eastern Finland about LUMI EuroHPC supercomputer, and especially about the possibilities of SMEs to utilize LUMI in industrial use.