Rahul Baburajan
We happily welcome Rahul Baburajan as a new PhD Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence's hub in Tromsø.
We happily welcome Rahul Baburajan as a new PhD Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence's hub in Tromsø, Norway.
By Petter Bjørklund, Communications Officer at SFI Visual Intelligence
Baburajan joined Visual Intelligence in February 2026. Originally from India, he is passionate about the intersection of foundational AI research and real-world impact, particularly within energy and sustainability.
Baburajan holds a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Aberdeen. His thesis focused on conditional language modeling for creative writing—exploring how large language models can be guided to produce structured and controllable outputs for creative writing applications.
During his undergraduate studies, Baburajan worked on deep learning models for computational imaging. In industry, he has built and deployed NLP systems for large-scale customer service automation. He has also worked on AI initiatives connected to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the National Decommissioning Centre in the UK.
Baburajan's PhD project sits at the intersection of foundational AI research and energy applications. While AI systems such as ChatGPT and Claude have become mainstream in recent years, he says that many high impact domains including energy remain underexplored from an AI perspective.
"My research aims to develop intelligent models that can help extract, interpret, and reason about complex scientific and industrial data in the energy sector. More broadly, I am interested in building robust, interpretable AI systems that can contribute both to operational efficiency and to fundamental scientific discovery within energy," he adds.
Baburajan is particularly excited about collaborating with theresearchers at Visual Intelligence and contributing to high quality AI research in the global north.
"Building and strengthening an AI research community here is something I find deeply meaningful. On a larger scale, I am motivated by the idea that advances in AI can accelerate progress in energy systems. If we think of the journey from energy to chips to AI and now AI back to energy, there is something deeply meaningful about closing that loop. Even incremental improvements in how we understand and manage energy systems can have long term global implications," says Baburajan.
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.
Zheming Xu is a PhD Research Fellow at Beijing Jiaotong University. She visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from September 2025 to January 2026.
Få kvinner søker seg til fag innenfor kunstig intelligens. Det kan skape blindsoner, mener ekspert (Norwegian news story in NRK.no).
Visual Intelligence was represented by Centre Director Robert Jenssen, Associate Professor Kristoffer Wickstrøm, and VI Alumna Sara Björk at the Arctic Frontiers side session "How can AI and satellite collaboration strengthen Arctic resilience?".
Petter Tømmeraas, Director of Data Center Services at Aker Nscale, visited SFI Visual Intelligence to learn more about our research projects and AI startups established by former UiT students.
We happily welcome Keyne Oei and Boye Sjo as new PhD Research Fellows at SFI Visual Intelligence in Tromsø and Oslo respectively.
Congratulations to Børge Solli Andreassen, who successfully defended his PhD thesis at the University of Oslo on December 18th 2025.
Attracting 280 international AI researchers, the Northern Lights Deep Learning Conference (NLDL) 2026 was successfully organized from January 5th to 9th 2026 at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Norway.
Visual Intelligence hosted a special NLDL 2026 mentoring session for young researchers with Professor Mihaela van der Schaar – a globally renowned AI researcher and expert
Centre Director and NLDL General Chair Robert Jenssen was interviewed by NRK about this year's Northern Lights Deep Learning Conference.
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270 KI-eksperter fra nært og fjernt møtes ved UiT for å dele siste forskningsnytt. Et av formålene er å styrke internasjonale bånd og samarbeid på tvers av det globale KI-miljøet (Norwegian news article on uit.no)
Med ferske millioner på konto skal Senter for pasientnær kunstig intelligens (SPKI) ved UNN bidra i et stort nasjonalt KI-prosjekt de neste fire årene (News article on unn.no)
We happily welcome Zijun Sun as a new Doctoral Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence in Tromsø, Norway.