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Artificial intelligence with humans in the lead

Professor Teuvo Kohonen's self-organising maps put Finnish AI research on the map in the 1980s. But have we lost our edge in today’s world, where the field is dominated by groups in the US and China which have seemingly limitless budgets?

No, say Aalto University’s AI researchers. European scientists are meeting the challenge by working together and building networks. A great example is the, a Research Council of Finland flagship project. It brings together researchers at Aalto, the University of Helsinki and VTT to develop data- and energy-efficient AI that can learn, plan, and collaborate with humans to solve complex problems. FCAI is playing an important role in transforming Finnish industry, healthcare and working life through research-based innovations. Ongoing fundamental research has already borne fruit in the form of better user interfaces, image generation and self-driving cars.

Aalto is also coordinating ELLIS Institute Finland, which will launch in 2025. Led by Professor Samuel Kaski, the institute willbe a major research hub in the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems network, which represents European research excellence in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Its goal is to ensure that AI development isn’t driven solely by the US and China but that Europe has the skills and resources to create AI solutions of its own.

Agents of change

In 2023, 1,614 Bachelors, 2,136 Masters and 230 PhDs graduated from Aalto University: designers, economists, quantum physicists, material scientists, fine arts educators, mathematicians and experts in dozens more fields. Aalto accounts for a significant fraction of Finland’s higher education degrees in engineering, business and the arts.

There are currently around 14,000 degree students at Aalto, about a 40% increase since we started 15 years ago. Aalto is Finland’s most international university and the 47th most international globally. Our students come from 117 countries, and 48% of the university's research and teaching staff are from outside Finland. Aalto alums work in more than 100 countries, and almost half of the research commercialization projects at Aalto are international. 

Aalto students are also keen to get new ideas and lessons from around the world. In 2023, nearly 1,000 students took part in exchange studies – more than ever before. Students at the School of Business were the most eager to take advantage of this opportunity.

Business and innovation for the benefit of society

Aalto University was given the mission to support Finland's success and competitiveness when it was founded. Aaltonians took up the task with enthusiasm – and with great results! 

Each year, Aalto’s innovation ecosystem produces about 100 new companies. Aalto is the third most active patent applicant in Finland, with more than 2,250 invention disclosures across 15 years of research. Companies founded by Aalto alums already provide more than 30,000 jobs. That figure that’s likely to keep growing, since 80% of Aalto’s students consider entrepreneurship an attractive option. Aalto's six largest alumni companies already have a combined worth of €30 billion. No wonder Aalto's innovation ecosystem ranks so well internationally and outperforms other European universities.

Entrepreneurship is a powerful tool for solving sustainability challenges. That’s why the courses in Aalto's entrepreneurship program, the Aalto Ventures Program, are always linked to the Sustainable Development Goals. Many of Aalto's research-driven companies are also tackling global environmental challenges, from recycling nutrients to developing greener building materials.

Clean energy solutions

Renewable energy technologies could cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 77%. At Aalto, dozens of research teams are working on renewable energy solutions.

One of the largest efforts aims to boost the hydrogen economy. In 2023, Aalto established the Hydrogen Innovation Centre to bring together researchers from different disciplines and strengthen cooperation with industry partners. Producing green hydrogen using renewable energy has the potential to reduce emissions from the steel industry and fertiliser production, as well as offering new, emission-free fuels. The nascent hydrogen economy is a huge economic opportunity for Finland. The country could produce up to 10% of the EU's green hydrogen, providing thousands of jobs and boosting tax revenues. 

Electrification will create an unprecedented need for power grids to become more efficient in terms of energy, materials and costs. Aalto is leading an Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence that’s working to address this. Researchers are developing methods to model and analyse these systems, as well as ways to produce the sustainable and compact equipment and power transmission systems needed for a cleaner future.

A hot place for cold research 

Aalto University plays a central role in Arctic technology education and research in Finland and internationally. The Aalto Ice and Wave Tank is the world's largest indoor ice tank. It attracts ice researchers from all over the world to be carry out studies that aren’t possible anywhere else.

‘We’ve become a hot place – or at least a hot cold place’ says Professor Jukka Tuhkuri, who studies ice in Otaniemi and in ice fields around the world. â€˜Climate change has made the field even more relevant.’

In 2021, Tuhkuri and his team became the first in the world to show that cold and warm ice fracture in different ways. Researchers are still exploring the practical implications of this groundbreaking discovery—but at the very least, textbooks and computational models will need to be updated.

Aalto’s ice researchers are also using high-precision simulations and advanced digital image correlation methods to study different kinds of ice. Changes in ice composition and conditions affect the load the ice puts on ships and offshore structures such as wind turbines.

‘We’ve messed up, and the ice has already changed. Now we need to figure out what this means for the environment and for society. Studying and stopping climate change is important, but we also have to use science to find ways to adapt to the new conditions,’ says Tuhkuri.

Neurotechnology that helps millions

The roots of brain research at Aalto go back to the 1980s in the university’s famous Low Temperature Laboratory, where Professor Olli V. Lounasmaa set out to explore low temperature quantum physics.

Cutting-edge work and multidisciplinary collaboration made Otaniemi a world leader in measuring the magnetic fields generated by brain activity (MEG) and in the construction of MEG equipment. Today, researchers at Aalto are part of an EU project which aims to combine MEG with AI to identify patients with a high risk of dementia as early as possible. 

Aalto Distinguished Professor Risto Ilmoniemi, for his part, is developing an improved TMS method, which influences brain activity through magnetic pulses delivered through the skull. The goal of the EU project led by Ilmoniemi is to build a magnetic stimulation device with up to 50 coils, automatically controlled by algorithms based on feedback collected from the brain. More efficient magnetic stimulation could significantly improve treatments for conditions such as severe depression and neuropathic pain.

Data-driven decision-making

In 2020, the COVID pandemic sent the world into a state of emergency. In an effort to help, economists at Aalto University and the Helsinki Graduate School of Economics set up a Situation Room to provide the country’s leaders with rapid, data-driven analysis to inform their decisions. 

‘Finland has a thirty-year tradition of using registry data on individuals and companies in research. In the Situation Room, we used the relevant parts of that data in a new way, nearly in real-time, and produced quick analyses for decision-makers,’ says Oskari Nokso-Koivisto, Director of the Aalto Economic Institute.

Statistics Finland and the VATT Institute for Economic Research were key participants alongside the academic researchers. For more than a year and a half, the Situation Room produced regular, tailored analyses on issues such as business lay-offs and redundancies, business confidence and how households and the labour market would recover from the pandemic shocks.

The work pioneered through the Situation Room continues today in the Data Room, a permanent organisation set up by the government as part of VATT to provide ministries with rapid analysis based on high-quality, up-to-date registry data. Since the establishment of the Data Room, the Aalto Economic Institute has supported data-driven decision-making in the country’s largest municipalities.

A hub for hands-on invention

Each year, multidisciplinary student teams in Aalto’s popular product development course tackle challenges set by the university’s corporate partners. With a budget of €10,000, they’ve come up with a range of inventive ideas, including edible packaging, high-precision cranes, a 3D body scanner and even a dog-training robot.

Learning together and learning by doing are important parts of the philosophy of Aalto Design Factory, which organizes the course. The Design Factory is an experimental education and research platform that brings together students from Aalto's different disciplines with researchers and companies. This experiment has attracted interest from around the world: there’s already an international network of 39 Design Factories in 25 countries.

Located at the heart of the Otaniemi campus, the Design Factory offers courses on product development and various development practices. The Design Factory staff also visit other courses, groups and companies to teach subjects such as prototyping, ideation and design thinking. 

Aalto’s students also learn hands-on skills, problem-solving and confidence in many other courses, such as the Electrical Workshop, where they work in teams to invent an electronic device. Open to all students, the course is one of Aalto’s most popular each year. In the mechatronics courses, students build smart devices, such as automatic coffee powder dispensers or wearable health technology.

Leading the way in games and cinema

The remarkable success of the Finnish games industry and the new boom in Finnish cinema have at least one thing in common: talented and creative people, many of them Aalto alums.

Aalto's internationally renowned game design and development major is built around the latest technology and research in the field. Students get a deep understanding of games and players, as well as a visionary and revolutionary mindset oriented to changing the future of games – from traditional games to educational games or even exercise games.  The programme also collaborates closely with some of the top video game companies.

Finnish cinema is enjoying increasing success and is finding an international audience. Student films are gaining ground at both domestic and international festivals. Aalto’s Department of Film aims to produce filmmakers with a strong vision of their own – the programme’s guiding star when training new talent is to encourage and nurture individuality. The diversification of filmmakers – and particularly the rise to prominence of women filmmakers – has also been a factor in Finnish cinema’s success. When Aalto’s film-makers address new and relevant subjects in interesting ways, their work resonates not only in this country but also around the world.

Makers of the LAHJA exhibition: 

Project lead, exhibition concept and curating: Outi Turpeinen  

Tableware curating: Ingrid Orman/ EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art & Outi Turpeinen

Production: Clement Bertaud  

Gift content: Johanna Palmroos & Minna Hölttä   

Gift texts: Minna Hölttä  

Tableware text: Outi Turpeinen  

Media-art: Niko Tiainen  

Soundscape: Niko Tiainen & Anze Bratus  

Visual identity and graphic design: Marianne Lenoir & Adam Tickle 

Graphic design production: Heli Laukko