New IBM technologies create valuable test environments for AI Sweden partners

Monday, April 28, 2025

A development environment and the possibility to use IBM's cloud and AI services. This is the latest addition to AI Sweden's technical infrastructure. The contribution from IBM enhances opportunities to support partners in exploring and implementing AI solutions within their own operations.

"Together, this enables partners to test and experiment with new AI ideas in a practical setting," says Ted Henriksson, systems engineer at AI Sweden.

Man with glasses works with server equipment.

Ted Henriksson in the AI Sweden – Edge Learning Lab, Gothenburg

Over the past few years, AI Sweden has built a first-class AI infrastructure, positioning Sweden at the international forefront of AI research and innovation. This has been made possible through contributions from Swedish and international technology developers who are partners with AI Sweden. All in all, the AI Sweden Technology Infrastructure provides access to advanced infrastructure, the Edge Learning Lab testbed, expertise and a network for collaboration in AI development.

Now, Edge Learning Lab is evolving into an even more dynamic hub for AI innovation as AI Sweden gains access to two parts of IBM's AI system. One part consists of IBM Fusion, a pre-configured and competitive environment equipped with six worker nodes prepared for Red Hat OpenShift. The purpose of IBM Fusion includes the ability to run advanced AI in its own data center, without the need for cloud services. The second part is credits for IBM Cloud, which provides access to a wide range of cloud services and AI infrastructure from IBM.

Partners now gain access to modern development environments with Red Hat OpenShift and a future Kubernetes cluster, which creates the conditions for flexible and scalable container solutions.

Ted Henriksson

Systems engineer at AI Sweden

The addition to AI Sweden also supports the emerging needs of AI development that go beyond just pure computing power.

"Just having hardware available today is no longer as interesting. What we want to offer our partners is the opportunity to come and talk to us about the potential of the different development environments, get tips on how we've seen them work in different situations, and where to start looking depending on their needs," says Ted Henriksson.

The infrastructure at AI Sweden is available to all partners, but a group that may have a particularly great need for the new infrastructure is AI technicians in the municipalities, believes Max Petersson, who is Senior Tech Lead at AI Sweden.

The AI technicians in the municipalities have the knowledge and are in the process of building their own resources. They are curious and want to be able to compare and see which strategy they should choose going forward to build their own infrastructure and methodology.

Max Petersson

Senior Tech Lead at AI Sweden

First to start using the new development environment is AI Sweden's MLOps project, 'Data-Driven Organizations – Best Practices for AI Implementation in Sweden'.

"The development environment is an important building block for other projects, such as the data-driven organizations project where we are setting up use cases in different development environments to see how we can create large-scale operation of AI solutions in an organization. But then, of course, it is also incredibly exciting to be able to showcase IBM watsonx itself, which many are interested in seeing," says Max Petersson.

IBM watsonx is IBM's data and AI platform with over 50 services covering needs from data storage, data control and data protection, development of AI capabilities, and AI Governance, for example, to meet the requirements now set by the EU AI Act.

Partners who have contributed to AI Sweden Technology Infrastructure

Aixia
Atea
AWS
Dell Technologies
Hopsworks
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Intel
IBM
NetApp
Proact
Red Hat
Scaleout

Stakater
Stormgrid
Vinnova
Volvo Cars
Zenseact

Through IBM, AI Sweden gains access to:

IBM Storage Scale System: a powerful storage solution designed to handle demanding workloads such as artificial intelligence (AI) and extensive data analysis
IBM Fusion: a hybrid cloud platform that runs in its own data center, without the need for access to public cloud services, designed to simplify the use of Kubernetes and the management of virtual machines, especially within Red Hat OpenShift environments
IBM watsonx: a complete data and AI platform that can be run in its own data center or in the cloud
IBM Cloud: access to a wide range of cloud services and the ability to integrate cloud solutions with existing IT infrastructure. Adapted for collaboration between private and public clouds

Man works on electronics at a workbench.

Max Petersson working in the Edge Learning Lab.

What is a development environment?

A development environment is like a combined toolbox and workspace for creating computer programs or websites.

The development environment contains the programs and systems needed to write the code, test that it works, and then make the program available. Often, there are different "workspaces" for different stages of the process, such as a place to write the code, one to test it, and one for the finished product to be used.

A good development environment makes it easier to collaborate and ensure that the program is good.

What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open-source platform for running software in server and cloud environments. Kubernetes includes functions for, among other things, distributing computing capacity between different servers, easily adapting available resources as needed, and managing the server cluster in a simple way.

From an organizational perspective, there are therefore many advantages to using Kubernetes. Red Hat OpenShift is the industry's leading application platform for hybrid clouds powered by Kubernetes, providing a more consistent platform for developing, modernizing, and deploying applications at scale, including AI-enabled applications.