Nordic Data & AI Weekly: Twirl, Kilter, Arboair, Algeno, and all the latest news & resources
Recent funding, news, and resources for builders
Quick reads on value creation
Things to know, whether you are building 🛠 or investing 💰
🤓 A case study on how Intercom navigated the AI paradigm shift, including notes on what other builder teams should know as they transform their products with language models.
🎓 Cohere launched LLM University - a set of comprehensive learning resources for anyone interested in natural language processing (NLP), from beginners to advanced learners.
👩🏼🏫 Harvard Business Review on 5 ways to future-proof your career in the age of AI - my favourite being to “double down on the real world”.
Recent AI funding in the Nordics & Baltics
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🇸🇪 Twirl: Platform for data teams, enabling the deployment of data pipelines from day one and management of all infrastructure and scaling. Raised $2.6m from Creandum and Cocoa VC (link).
🇸🇪 Arboair: Using AI-driven image analysis to produce sharp decision-making data for forest owners. Raised an undisclosed amount from Paper Province and Sustainable Energy Angels (SEA).
🇸🇪 Algeno: Software and services for energy optimisation for real estate and property owners. Raised an undisclosed amount from Chalmers Ventures.
🇳🇴 Kilter: Fully automated farming robot that uses a Deep Learning Neural Network to map its way around weeds and crops. Raised $2.9m from Analytika, SBGI, Halden kommunale pensjonskasse (HKP), and angels.
Latest AI news & best reads in the Nordics & Baltics
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🇸🇪 Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently visited Sweden, stating that “Sweden shows leadership in AI”. He may just have been pandering to the locals after meeting the Prime Minister, or he may be aware of the research strength and level of AI patent activity.
Here is a summary of the conversation he had with Professor Danica Kragic while visiting KTH.
📺 Oliver Edholm, the 20-year old founder of Stockholm-based product recommendation technology startup Depict, discussing AI on Swedish TV (in Swedish).
If there is some relevant Nordic AI news or funding that is missing from this newsletter, feel free to share by replying directly or emailing nordicaiweekly@substack.com and I’ll look to spread the word next week. Thanks!
News from the wider world 🌍 🌎 🌏
🆕 OpenAI launched the ChatGPT app for iOS, currently only in the US, with Android and other countries to follow.
🆕 Meta announced the development of new custom chips, capable of accelerating AI training and inferencing workloads, as it aims to develop in-house infrastructure for AI workloads.
🗣 Meta has built AI models that can recognise and produce speech for more than 1,000 languages—a tenfold increase on what’s currently available. Hopefully leading to speech apps for many more languages than exist now, as well as aiding in the preservation of languages that are at risk of disappearing.
🦾 Is Europe becoming a serious contender when it comes to robotics? Positive trends related to funding suggest that may be the case.
This week on the regulatory side…
🌎 OpenAI’s leadership has proposed an international regulatory body for AI, stating that the pace of innovation in artificial intelligence is so fast that we can’t expect existing authorities to adequately rein in the technology. The official blog post here.
⚠️ Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus in psychology and neural science at NYU, and outspoken critic of the unchecked rise of AI, sat alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and IBM’s chief privacy trust officer Christina Montgomery, as all three testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding AI safety and regulation - TechCrunch followed up with him afterwards to get his thoughts on the experience and what happens next, and here a podcast where he shares more of the risks he sees today.
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