UiB AI at USA-Norway Artificial Intelligence Joint Working Meeting
Researchers from UiB participated in a joint working meeting in Washington D.C. following up on the new memorandum of understanding between Norway and the U.S. on collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI).
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Earlier this year, the Norwegian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) on collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications to science, climate and health.
The aim is to further develop cooperation in the promotion of scientific and technological activities related to AI in a broad range of fields, with impacts on science, energy, climate and health
Now in June, the Norwegian ministry of education and research and the DoE were hosting a joint working meeting at the Norwegian embassy in Washington D.C. to follow up on this agreement.
The University of Bergen was participating in the working meeting along with other researchers and government representatives from both Norway and the U.S.
The impact of strong seasonal climate modelling using AI
Kikki Flesche Kleiven spoke at the climate and Energy session about opportunities and challenges of applying AI in climate modelling. What if we could accurately predict the climate for next year’s seasons, and what could this mean for agriculture and renewable energy production?
The session was moderated by Darron Mollot at the U.S. Department of Energy and was followed by a lively discussion on shared themes of interest, such as the issue of applying AI to multidimensional phenomenon such as climate change.
Capacity-building for AI research
Inge Jonassen presented UiB AI and gave an overview of AI research at the University of Bergen and possible areas for collaboration. Including AI in molecular design, with impact on both health and energy - two main themes of the joint meeting.
Inge Jonassen was recently appointed chair of the Board of NORA – Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium, also presented in the meeting by Klas Pettersen, CEO of NORA.
The full program of the joint working meeting can be found below.
Going forward
As the meeting came to a close on Friday 3rd, , the U.S. and Norwegian participants had concluded on 17 concrete points with assigned people from both sides to follow up. This included “Couple AI/Physics (Hybrid Systems)”, “Climate Initiative Effect”, “Drug Discovery” and “Model Sharing” – to name a few.
The aim is to follow up with a second meeting in Norway this fall to ensure progress on the development of new collaborations between Norway and the U.S.
