New Fundamentals: ELLIS Institute Finland launches with bold scientific ambitions

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The new institute aims to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning for transforming R&D, enhancing human-AI teamwork, and creating exciting new science.

Finland has taken the next step in expanding the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS)—a new ELLIS Institute has started operations. This marks a major advance for AI and machine learning research in Europe, with a successful first call for principal investigators and startup premises for the institute secured on the campus of Aalto University.

ELLIS Institute pre-launch on May 21, 2025

    People standing in a group holding ribbons

    Aalto University president Ilkka Niemelä, ELLIS Institute director Samuel Kaski, Minister of Science and Culture Mari-Leena Talvitie, Åbo Akademi University vice-rector Reko Leino and others cut the ELLIS Institute ribbon. Photos by Matti Ahlgren/Aalto University

    Man lifts cover off of a square blackboard on a stand

    Samuel Kaski unveils the blackboard, the starting point for great ideas 

    Woman standing in front of a banner holds a blackboard with text 'hybrid intelligence'

    Hybrid intelligence inspires Guoying Zhao (University of Oulu)

    Man writing with chalk on a blackboard

    Mika Grundström’s (University of Vaasa) New Fundamental is ‘collaboration’

    Man speaking in front of a screen

    Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of AMD Silo AI, is a strong supporter in establishing ELLIS Institute Finland. Sarlin's Foundation PS is funding over a dozen professorships that are co-affiliated with the ELLIS Institute.

    The pre-launch of the ELLIS Institute on May 21 was attended by representatives from partner universities across Finland, as well as key supporters such as Mari-Leena Talvitie, Minister of Science and Culture, and Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of AMD Silo AI. At the event, founding director and Aalto University professor Samuel Kaski outlined the vision for the institute: establishing new fundamentals for applied AI, collaborating across domains and attracting global talent. “We are scaling up the institute very quickly, with the first principal investigator recruitments currently being finalized and other operations kickstarting,” says Kaski. “We aim to renew the very core of R&D by making machine learning better and more widely applicable, and want to partner across academia and industry to make this happen.”

    To illustrate how world-changing ideas can start small, Kaski unveiled an inaugural blackboard at the pre-launch. The blackboard is both a nod to the logo of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent (ELLIS) and a symbol of the institute’s ambition to bring new fundamentals of machine learning from the drawing board towards transformative applications. “Companies and society at large are now beginning to benefit from the wealth of basic research in AI and machine learning, but it is also obvious that many important problems have not been solved yet,” says Kaski. “We need research on new fundamentals that make machine learning more applicable, and we are also setting up ‘new fundamentals’ in how we work with partners to solve those problems with our combined expertise.”   

    About ELLIS Institute Finland

    Established in 2025, ELLIS Institute Finland is the second institute in ELLIS, the pan-European AI network of excellence. It functions as a world-class research hub in AI and machine learning and a unique gateway to collaboration Europe-wide and globally. For researchers, the institute offers a dynamic, international research environment, access to cutting-edge computing resources (including EuroHPC LUMI supercomputer), and close ties to both academia and industry in Finland and beyond. The institute operates in partnership with Finnish universities, RDI organizations and businesses, and is funded by Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture, partner organizations and private sources, such as Foundation PS.

    International calls for new researchers will be announced in the fall. A larger scientific and celebratory launch event for ELLIS Institute Finland will take place in October 2025. 

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