Announcing Center for Artificial Intelligence in the Maritime Sector

"The Norwegian maritime industry is world-leading, and we must quickly adopt new technology to maintain our position. A center for artificial intelligence in the maritime sector will increase competitiveness and value creation in the maritime industry," says Mari Sundli Tveit, CEO of the Research Council.  

The center will have a total budget of 75-100 million NOK and will last for five years, starting in 2025. The center will be a collaboration between industry, research organisations, and the public sector. The AI related problems should be relevant for all types of maritime actors and cover all topics within maritime research: autonomy, digitalization, green shipping, and maritime safety. 

"The Research Council will continuously assess the possibility of announcing centers within several industries and areas," says Sundli Tveit. "Through mobilization and dialogue with many different actors over the past year, we see a need for AI centers within specific themes to be able to apply knowledge more quickly," she says. 

The maritime center for applied AI comes in addition to the AI centers already announced under the "AI billion." While the goals of these are to strengthen Norwegian AI research across sectors, the AI center for the maritime industry is aimed at applying AI in a strong and knowledge-dependent industry. 

The announcement has an application deadline of 12 March 2025, and will soon be available on the Research Council's website.