When AI changes entry level jobs
While NHH students remain highly sought-after in the labor market, we are seeing clear signs that the recruitment landscape is changing, particularly for the type of economists, analysts, and advisors we educate.
«AI for decisions»-centre working with DIG
The NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) will head the upcoming Norwegian research centre “AI for Decisions” (AID). They will work with DIG and use expertise from DIG on AI as an organizational and management challenge.
The centre will focus on industrial AI and include 60 industry partners. Verner Hølleland is project manager at the Faculty of Information Technology and Electric Engineering, and in charge of establishing the AID-centre, along with Professor Sebastien Gros and Dr. Signe Riemer-Sørensen of research foundation Sintef. – The main priority is to see industry create greater value through use and application of AI, he says.
- DIG is focused on value creation from use of AI and how this impacts organizational and management issues including competence gaps, he continues. The collaboration between DIG and DIG’s business partners with aiD and the extensive competence ecosystem can help to close the gaps, he adds. – It is important that academia gets closer connected to business and industry, and here DIG is important with its focus on use and application of AI, Verner Hølleland says.
Ensuring impact from results
An important aspect of the cooperation with DIG is to ensure that results from the research at the AID-centre also has an impact in businesses and corporations. – We can see that a way to solve a problem in the healthcare sector could also be applied in the energy sector. In AID we will develop methods, frameworks and algorithms that produce good, safe and ethical decisions in AI-systems.
The cooperation with DIG can create opportunities to see our results have a real impact with DIG’s partners, Verner Hølleland tells.
The aim is to see results from AID be the foundation for new projects from those who apply the AI-tools, and in cooperation with DIG and DIG’s partners, he tells.
Closing the expertise gap
Verner Hølleland sees that a lack of expertise, specialists, engineers and Ph.D-scholars in the field is a challenge.
- Retraining and updating the current workforce is thus vital to ensure we have access to sufficient expertise. This expertise in the current workforce is often key to success with AI. Understanding existing processes, systems and routines within a corporation is often just as important as being able to use advanced AI-tools, he continues.
In this context, he sees much value from having DIG alongside as a partner for the AID.
How far and how fast?
The Norwegian Research Council have given grants spread over five years for the six AI-centres.
- This is really quite a short period, according to Hølleland. – We certainly don’t intend to end the AID-centre after five years. With contributions from partners and new grant applications as we go along, we are aiming for ten years of research into AI for Decisions, he tells.
The ambitions for the AID-centre are high. They will have 35 to 40 Ph.D.-scholars attached to the centre, as well as 60 other researchers and possibly 500 master’s students. Including also leading industry partners such as Equinor, Kongsberg Group, Hydro and others, Hølleland believes this will be one of the major pooling of efforts to build expertise in industrial AI in Norway – with DIG as one of the partners.
- Take part in this – and be a bridge to reach DIG’s partners with concrete and applicable results from our work, Verner Hølleland says in final “call to arms”.
- We need to understand how AI will hit our members
The fintech cluster Norwegian Finance Innovation (FI) has been a partner for DIG since the beginning. They stay plugged into DIG’s research to help their members stay on top of industry trends – lately to better assess how the Norwegian finance industry will be affected as AI is adopted throughout the sector.