Demystifying the Data Factory

The Data Factory is one of our key resources, allowing partners to explore concepts with expert input, and reach proof of value faster than they could alone. 

When partners first contact AI Sweden with an idea that needs the resources of the Data Factory, there is a process to take the partners from concept to fully running experiments very quickly. This is done in only a couple of hours in many instances. 

Kim Henriksson, Testbed Architect at the Data Factory, describes the typical process. “Together, we take a deep dive into their topic. At the first discussion we can share knowledge and ideas, explain the equipment and available datasets. We can suggest a step-by-step approach to address the topic and recommend whom they could partner up with. Our goals are to help our partners accelerate their AI journey by reducing risks, lower barriers, and speed up innovation.” 

Creating legal space for innovation

The Data Factory team has become experienced at navigating the requirements of GDPR and can recommend datasets that simplify compliance, enhance the opportunities for collaboration and reduce time to get started. Such datasets can be ‘pre-approved’ datasets hosted at AI Sweden, (using representative data to explore infrastructure), or certain open datasets.  Partners have access to knowledge sharing from previous projects and advice from colleagues here to enable new projects to benefit from work done in the past.

See more previous partner projects at the Data Factory:

To begin work in the data factory infrastructure, the first step is to sign a use case specification document. This clarifies who is responsible, for what purpose is the work being done, which data set will be used, and when the project is planned to begin. This step also includes GDPR-related agreements if necessary.

“We’ve essentially gotten it down to a series of yes and no questions. We want to make it as accessible as possible for everyone,” says Kim. Even when partners have come with ideas that are not fully formed, the team can help guide them to a concrete idea very quickly. Since everything is signed digitally, in ideal cases, it can take only a few hours of meetings to finalize everything. 

Getting started

AI Sweden makes the Data Factory, all its resources, and all our expertise available to all partner organizations. Anyone at our partner organizations with an idea can reach out to us and we will try to make it happen. What could your organization learn by investing a couple of hours to explore the possibilities?

If you want to learn more about the Data Factory you can find more information here. Reach out to Beatrice Comoli with your idea to get started.