Speech by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo at the AI Action Summit Paris 11 February 2025

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Speech at the Action AI Summit Closing Ceremony, Paris 11 February 2025. Check against delivery.

Let me first extend my thanks and congratulations to President Macron and the Government of France for making this Summit a reality. This is a landmark effort for building consensus on global cooperation on artificial intelligence. It’s an achievement already how you have gathered so many of us here. It’s clear that as Europe we need to do more.

I also want to recognize the important role that the United Nations plays in building global consensus on these matters. 

As a first answer to your question of how have we solved the challenges in scaling the use of AI: investing in the infrastructure that we need to harness the benefits AI. 

AI has a huge impact on the welfare and competitiveness of our societies.

In Finland we have decided already years ago that AI is a national top priority for us. It is also a top priority for my government. Creating good conditions for success in AI has a central role in our national digitalization strategy. 

We like concrete actions in Finland and we have high expertise in technology. We have increased our already high public investment to research and innovations during my government. We invest extra public funding, and we are going to reach 4% of GDP by 2030.  

As the field of AI is developing rapidly, we have decided to keep investing in enabling infrastructure, access to quality data and world class supercomputers. We're also building competence through attracting and educating world-class talent. Recently we have invested additional funding to launch a European ELLIS AI Institute in Finland.

These issues should also be priorities for Europe. As we know, Europe as a whole is behind its key competitors and we need to step up on bridging the innovation gap.

We need to strike a balance between regulation and innovation, and make sure that we don’t create any additional obstacles for the beneficial usage of AI, while ensuring trust in the technology.

We have many world class companies in addition to a growing startup ecosystem. These include the Finnish-French Nokia, which invests heavily in AI powered networks, and the elevator and escalator operator KONE known for their AI expertise, such as predictive maintenance. 

We also need to make sure we have the means to adapt societally through building an AI-literate population.

I see AI being closely connected with protecting rule of law and democracy. We need AI that is aligned to our values. This is where international cooperation in AI governance is also critical. 

Second: Public-private partnerships

As a small country, we can be agile and cooperate flexibly across sectors. 

Our national AI strategies have always been prepared in close collaboration with all stakeholders. This is natural for us. In our case, public and private sector investments are coming together to take AI research and application in Finland to the next level. 

Finland was recently chosen to host one of the seven European AI Factories and we are already working to build next generation pan-European supercomputers through LUMI-AI. Serious investments in quantum computing are also taking place. 

Our context also means we can quickly launch pilots and experiments. 

We have a sound basis for using AI in the public sector to enable this. For example, we're now looking at using AI for legislative drafting. 

Third: Sustainable AI

The training and use of generative AI poses a significant environmental burden. 

We must find ways to address the energy-efficiency demand for AI in a sustainable way.

Finland is home for one of the most eco-efficient data centers in the world, running on abundant supply of green energy and the heat generated is circulated back into the community. It is all part of a circular economy where resources are not wasted.

Here you are showing the way forward and it is very crucial for all of us that you are holding this Summit. We are happy to support the Sustainable AI Coalition. This is an excellent way to raise standard for more sustainable AI.