WASP – Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program

WASP Research Arenas – Bridging academia and industry 🤝 WASP’s Research Arenas (WARA) connect researchers and industry to solve real-world challenges in AI, autonomous systems, and software. Each arena offers a unique opportunity to validate and refine scientific theories in industrially relevant settings — from robotics and public safety to medicine, media & language and operational data.   Our arenas: WARA Ops, WASP Research Arena Robotics, WASP Research Arena Media and Language, WASP Research Arena for Public Safety and WARA Medicine.   💡What’s in it for you? 𝐏𝐡𝐃 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: validate your research, access cutting-edge resources, and grow your network 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐲: collaborate with industry and shape relevant new challenges 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲: influence research agendas, access results, and connect with top WASP talent   Learn more or get involved: https://lnkd.in/dcwF_qEw   #WASP #WARA #industry #academia

𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱-𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗜𝗖𝗠𝗜 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 Congratulations to first-year WASP PhD student Ricardo Santana and co-authors Bahar İrfan, Erik Lagerstedt, WASP researchers Gabriel Skantze and André Pereira for receiving a top paper award at the 27th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2025), held in Canberra, Australia! The paper, “Speech-to-Joy: Self-Supervised Features for Enjoyment Prediction in Human–Robot Conversation,” presents Speech-to-Joy, a novel multimodal framework that predicts users’ self-reported enjoyment in conversations with robots. By leveraging self-supervised audio and text embeddings, the method estimates enjoyment directly from natural dialogue — without relying on external emotion labels or prompting from large language models. The results are impressive: outperforming both human annotators and heavier LLM-based baselines, the approach demonstrates the potential of lightweight, scalable solutions in human–robot interaction. Read the paper: https://lnkd.in/eirEEaB5 Pictured: From left to right, University of Canberra Associate Professor Ram Subramanian, Monash University Professor Gholamreza (Reza) Haffari, and WASP PhD student Ricardo Santana. Santana accepted the top paper award at IMCI in Canberra earlier this month.   #WASP #MultimodalAI #ICMI2025 #SpeechToJoy 

🔒 October is cybersecurity awareness month and at WASP, we’re proud to contribute to strengthening Sweden’s resilience against cyber threats.   Last year, WASP launched a NEST call to tackle high-priority challenges in cyber security. Five research projects were selected, made possible by a strategic investment of 200 million SEK from the Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse. This initiative supports cutting-edge research and key recruitments in an area that’s increasingly critical for both society and industry.   One of these projects is AIR², where Simin Nadjm-Tehrani and Elisa Bertino are working together to develop AI that can detect hacker attacks and take action even before any damage is done. With this work, cyber security would be not only more efficient but also potentially cheaper.   Read about Simin and Elisa’s work: https://lnkd.in/dN43SAup Cybersecurity NESTs: https://lnkd.in/d_vujxGy   #Cybersecurity #WASP #Resilience 

Meet us at EurIPS 2025 👋   We will be one of the exhibitors at EurIPS 2025, a European conference officially endorsed by NeurIPS, the most prestigious AI conference globally. You'll find us in the booth of Nordic AIR, consisting of the five biggest Nordic research initiatives: WASP, NORA – The Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium, Pioneer Centre for AI (P1), Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI) and CADIA.   📅When: December 3-5, 2025 📍Where: Bella Center in Copenhagen If you plan to be on site, don't forget to drop by! #WASP #NordicAIR

Exploring research and industry in Vietnam 🌍   In August, PhD students and postdocs from WASP travelled to Hanoi, Vietnam, for a self-organized study trip that blended industry visits, academic exchange, and participation in ACM ASIACCS 2025.   “This trip to Hanoi was incredibly enriching. Not only did we gain valuable insights into Vietnam’s tech industry and fresh perspectives on our own research, but we also strengthened our connections as a WASP community," says Mojtaba Moazen, WASP PhD student at Kungliga Tekniska högskolan who organized the study trip.   WASP encourages PhD students to arrange their own study trips abroad as a chance to explore new research environments, build international networks, and bring fresh perspectives back to Sweden.   Thanks to all the hosts!   AgileTech Vietnam, Hanoi University of Science and Technology   First image, from left: Firooz Shahriari (PhD), Thang Nguyen (Founder of Agiletech), Piero Romare (PhD), Erik Mårtensson (Postdoc), Vu Tra My (Kate) (Business development Manager of Agiletech), Maggie Tran (PhD), Antonio Napoli (PhD), Mojtaba Moazen (PhD).   🔗 hhttps://lnkd.in/dt_j3bg2

Last week, WASP PhD students and faculty explored leading academic and industrial environments in the Netherlands with inspiring visits to RoboHouse, TU Delft | AI, SAM XL, HighTechXL, Eindhoven University of Technology, Amsterdam Machine Learning Group, and IKEA.    From robotics and machine learning to data-driven industry insights, the trip offered rich exchanges and new perspectives. These international visits are a key part of the WASP Graduate School experience — fostering collaboration and global connections.   A warm thanks to all hosts!   #WASP #studytrip #graduateschool

🎥 10 years of impact: WASP From foundational research to real-world applications, WASP has spent a decade building Sweden’s capacity in AI, autonomous systems, and software—bringing together academia, industry, and society.   Watch the video below to see the people, projects, and partnerships behind the progress, and explore highlights of WASP's 10 years of impact.   👉 Watch the video: https://lnkd.in/dgHaJNBY 📘 Read the 10-year Impact Report: https://lnkd.in/gRh6nxww   #WASP #AI #WASP10years #impact #impactreport

WASP at NeurIPS 2025 – 27 papers accepted! This year, 27 papers with contributions from WASP PhD students, alumni, and senior researchers have been accepted to NeurIPS 2025, one of the world’s leading conferences in machine learning and computational neuroscience. Last year, the number of accepted papers was 20, marking a significant increase and continued momentum for WASP’s research community. “This is a clear testament to the impact and global relevance of WASP’s research community. These contributions not only showcase academic excellence, but also underline Sweden’s growing role in shaping the future of AI,” says Amy Loutfi, WASP Program Director. 📄 Read more and explore the full list of accepted papers: https://lnkd.in/dRZwrYee #neurIPS2025 #papers #WASP

Dag Lindbo , Head of AI & New Technologies at Ericsson, shared how Ericsson’s scale—powering roughly half of the world’s 5G traffic outside China—shapes its AI priorities. As models become more powerful, he argued, they often become less useful in practice and closing that gap is now essential. Since no one truly has perfectly clean or sufficient data, a key frontier is “recovering knowledge architecture” from disorganized data—an area ripe for breakthrough research and new ventures. #WASP #AID2025 #academia #industry

Hybrid event tomorrow: Machine Condition Monitoring with Neuromorphic Technology.