PhD student Rwiddhi Chakraborty at UiT
Self Supervised Explainability on Graphs
In the past decade, the availability of large-scale datasets allowed the proliferation of deep learning-based architectures in computer vision, language modelling, and graph-based data. The curation and annotation process of these datasets is overly expensive. In recent years, new methodologies emerged to train deep learning models on unlabeled data, so called self-supervision.
To prepare students on these highly relevant topics, we, University of Oslo (UiO) and UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), as part of the SFI Visual Intelligence efforts, joined forces to teach a special curriculum course about bleeding edge topics related to deep learning methods based on self-supervision and non-structured data (that is, based on graphs). Moreover, due to the need to reveal the decisions made by these models, we placed special emphasis on novel techniques used to explain the inner workings of these models.
The course puts an emphasis on letting the student discuss and lead the learning endeavor. The sessions encompassed active discussions among the participants. Professors from UiO and UiT provided useful moderation and insights to the discussions. William Ho, a UiO masters’ student, mentioned, “this [course] has been the most enjoyable course I’ve ever taken [at] IFI,” due to its highly interactive setup. Also, Rwiddhi Chakraborty, from UiT, expressed the usefulness of the curriculum and discussions. Another anonymous student mentions, “[presenting papers to each other] has been fantastic to complete the learning cycle—since we are learning the content and then presenting/teaching it as well.”
The wonderful experience has already led to innovative ideas on improving collaboration between the two sites and will be integrated into future offerings of the course. After seeing the success and enthusiasm from the students, we will explore new ways of providing more joint venues for the students to collaborate between the two sites.
Responsible at UiT: Michael Kampffmeyer
Responsable at UiO: Adín Ramírez Rivera
The field of Visual Intelligence is continuously transforming. Chief Research Scientist Arnt-Børre Salberg dives deeper into the current trends in the field of visual intelligence as of early 2026.
Generativ kunstig intelligens er imponerende, men ikke alltid så nyttig til å løse industrielle problemer (Norwegian op-ed in digi.no).
Congratulations to Marit Dagny Kristine Jenssen, who successfully defended her PhD thesis at UiT The Arctic University of Norway on April 10th
The NCS model, a seismic foundation model trained on data from the Norwegian data repository for subsurface data, is now available as an open-source model, allowing anyone to download, utilize, and further develop the model.
The Visual Intelligence Annual Report 2025, highlighting the centre's progress, activities, achieved innovations, staff, funding, and publications for 2025, is now available to read on our websites.
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Congratulations to Centre Director Robert Jenssen, who received UiT's Research and Development Award at the university's annual celebration.
Visual Intelligence researchers contributed to the Pioneer Centre for AI workshop on Electronic Health Records research. The aim was to strengthen ties between the two centres on EHR-related research.
Tre av studentene i sivilingeniør i Kunstig Intelligens ved UiT skal delta i NM i KI. Slik gikk det da de ble intervjuet ved hjelp av kunstig intelligens (News article in nordlys.no).
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Rami Al-Belmpeisi is a PhD Research Fellow in the Visual Computing section at DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark. He visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from November 2025 to February 2026.
Visual Intelligence researchers came to the UiT Open Day to inform the students about UiT's study programme, and inspire them to pursue AI-related studies and career paths.
Congratulations to our colleague Michael Kampffmeyer, who received the Fridtjof Nansen Prize for Young Researchers in 2026.
We happily welcome Rahul Baburajan as a new PhD Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence's hub in Tromsø.
Congratulations to our colleague Sarina Thomas, who has been recognized as one of Norway's Top 50 Women in Tech!
Elisabeth Wetzer forsker på hvordan maskiner kan lære å analysere medisinske bilder – og samtidig forstå hva legene faktisk ser etter (Norwegian news article on dagsavisen.no)
Visual Intelligence researchers organized a preparatory course for UiT AI students who are attending this year's Norwegian AI Championship.
We happily welcome Veronica Lachi and Qing Liu as new Associate Professors at SFI Visual Intelligence.
Artur Radzivil is a PhD Research Fellow at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. He visited Visual Intelligence in Oslo from September to November 2025.
Congratulations to Marius Aasan, who successfully defended his PhD thesis at the University of Oslo on February 10th.
We had the pleasure of talking to UiT students about the career opportunities at SFI Visual Intelligence and UiT at TEKdagen 2026.
Centre Director Robert Jenssen met with Sigrun Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, alongside UiT and Aker Nscale representatives to give an update on Aker Nscale's AI Giga Factory in Narvik, Norway.