Norway and Finland join forces to advance the safe use of AI

Based on the MoU, Sikt and CSC – IT Center for Science are establishing a long-term partnership to promote the safe and responsible use of AI in education and research. The collaboration focuses on developing practical services that enhance AI capabilities for their customer organisations. At the same time, the partnership supports European digital sovereignty by, for example, enabling market access for small, national, and local AI solutions.

CSC provides IT services for Finland’s public sector, delivering national digital services for education and research, similarly to Sikt in Norway.

A secure platform for AI use

At the core of the collaboration is Sikt AI, an AI management service developed by Sikt. It is a centralised service that enables the secure and controlled use of AI tools in public sector organisations, and it has already been widely adopted in the Norwegian education sector.

The service allows organisations to securely scale the use of AI-based solutions. In practice, it functions as an operational layer where users log in with their organisational credentials, select the large language models and other AI tools they wish to use, and manage how their data is utilised. The solution ensures, for example, that user prompts and data are not used for further training of commercial AI models, while giving organisations full control over AI usage. In addition, the platform enables the sharing and integration of applications into learning environments.

First pilots in the Finnish education sector

Sikt AI is already adopted in many Norwegian education and research organisations. Following the MoU, CSC and Sikt will begin their collaboration in phases. The first phase includes pilot projects in the Finnish education sector, from primary education to higher education institutions, where organisations will test the AI management service in practice. At the same time, integration of Finnish identity solutions such as Haka (the Finnish equivalent of Feide) and MPASSid, developed by CSC, will be piloted as part of the platform.

The pilots will gather insights into how the service meets the needs of different user groups in teaching, research, and administration.

In the longer term, the collaboration may expand toward broader European interoperability, supporting the use of European language models and strengthening European sovereignty in AI development.

– At CSC, our goal is to advance and develop the responsible use of AI. We want to provide our customers with secure AI services and operating environments. Collaboration with Sikt supports these objectives, and I see our expertise complementing each other in an excellent way, says Kimmo Koski, CSC's Managing Director.

What this means for Norwegian customers

The partnership with CSC is not just about expanding into new countries; it also strengthens Sikt AI for existing customers in Norway. Insights into how AI supports better learning, gained from pilots within Finland's internationally renowned school system, will feed directly into the continued development of the platform, and access to additional computing capacity and European language models will benefit Norwegian institutions as well. For Sikt's Norwegian institutions, this collaboration means an even more capable and future-proof AI service.

A collaboration of mutual benefits

While Sikt contributes Sikt AI as the core platform, CSC brings strong expertise in digital services for research and education as well as European co-operation networks. The partnership will leverage the computing power of the LUMI AI Factory, and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ecosystem, among others. For instance, the LUMI AI Factory provides reliability, control, and high-performance computing capacity for AI and data-intensive processes.

The collaboration also enables the use of European and national language models alongside global alternatives. The goal is to support a diverse ecosystem where smaller providers can bring their solutions to market and where public and private stakeholders collaborate.

– Nordic and international co-operation has always been a strength in our sector. Through this partnership with CSC, we combine our expertise to give both Norwegian and Finnish institutions access to AI solutions built on shared values of safety, data protection, and R&E sector needs, says Terje Mørland, Director General of Sikt.