HELSINKI - Yes. Times have changed. Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) was known in Finland long before Finnish AI was known in China. AI algorithms of Bytedance company help Finnish youngsters to share their videos on TikTok. How many Chinese teenagers have heard about Finnish AI?

The situation was opposite some two decades ago when Finnish ICT skills connected hundreds of millions of Chinese in a way never seen before. Mobile communications put Finland onto the Chinese map of the world. The change the world, and China particularly, has gone through during the past few years in the realm of technology is astonishing. Still, even in China, it is worthwhile to make comparisons and see what the others are doing.

Here are some insights into how AI is viewed in Finland and how it is linked to health technology based on a recent report by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Employment of Finland regarding to the national AI 4.0 programme.

AI, Finland Heading Toward the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Finland has been a forerunner in human-centric AI and, in 2017, one of the first countries to launch a national AI-strategy. One of the objectives of the Finnish AI-strategy work was to ensure the human-centric introduction of AI, while securing competitiveness and economic growth of businesses. A concrete example stemming from the AI Strategy work is the Elements of AI: a free online course, introducing the basics of AI to anyone interested in over 30 languages. By the end of October 2020 more than 500,000 students from over 110 countries had already enrolled the course.  

In addition to capitalising on competence and learning, Finland’s strengths include a human-centric approach to AI and data economy development. In April 2021, the European Commission proposed a regulatory fram