Finland’s AI 4.0 program identifies targets and indicators that will boost digitalization. This program aims at the companies’ use of artificial intelligence technologies as well as their implementation. This initiative aims to strengthen digitalization, promote economic growth, encourage collaboration across different sectors, increase investment in digitalization, and enhance digital skills, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The other significant areas of concentration include cooperation with Europe and ecological changeover. Let us understand what we need to know about it.
Finland’s AI 4.0 Establishment:
The program was called Artificial Intelligence 4.0 when it was started. On November 13, 2020, Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä appointed a steering group led by Jussi Herlin to develop a Finnish action program for accelerating the deployment of artificial intelligence and promoting the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, referring to digitization as a means of transforming production and services.
Finland’s AI 4.0 Objective:
It addresses specific issues related to digitalization facing Finland which include relatively low levels of investment in digital technologies, a slow rate at which small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are renewing their value creation processes as well as delays in strategic investments that could facilitate the fourth industrial revolution in Finland.
The program seeks to promote increased productivity and sustainability through enhanced digital investments; to have diverse manufacturing industry ecosystems alongside new value chains while strengthening Finland’s approach toward enhancing European strategic independence in action.
2030 Vision: Finland on the twin switch
As per the objectives of the Artificial Intelligence 4.0 program, the Finnish industry will be able to compete globally with clean, efficient, and digital solutions which increase customer’s carbon handprint in a standardized manner by the year 2030. Responding simultaneously to industrial digitalization and green transition challenges is the twin transition. According to this program, Finland will be a sustainable winner by international standards in this twin transition by 2030.
How much has been achieved:
1. Different companies, society, and users perceive data usage differently. Legislation, contracts, and self-regulation among industries could validate data usage.
2. Support should be given to creating significant test environments and fostering international cooperation. The Finnish Digital Innovation Hub network should integrate these activities.
3. It is important to understand the potential for business ecosystems and B2B markets and come up with means of utilizing data within them.
4. Based on learned experiences from AI accelerator types of operations, they should persist with such approaches while looking for ways to extend their scope. Additionally, Finland should ensure that it is able to secure massive strategic investments in AI and RDI competence-enhancing investments.
Way Forward:
Strategic and policy planning should coordinate the aims of the Artificial Intelligence 4.0 program with other policy programs, focusing on implementing Prime Minister Marin’s Government Programme and promoting recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. The Sustainable Growth Programme for Finland, a strategy for industrial renewal, the Circular Economy Programme, the National Roadmap for Research, Development and Innovation, and the Government’s entrepreneurship strategy are key ones among them.
