Category: Use case

DeiC Interactive HPC – UCloud plays a central role in the Danish Foundation Models (DFM) project, which forms part of the Danish government’s strategic initiative for artificial intelligence.

Danish Foundation Models (DFM) is supported by the Ministry of Digital Affairs as part of the national AI strategy, which aims to ensure that Denmark has access to advanced and tailored language models. These models are intended for use across a wide range of sectors, including healthcare, public administration, education, and private enterprise.

A shared digital environment

The DFM project brings together Danish universities, research institutions, and industry partners in a joint effort to establish new standards for ethically responsible and inclusive AI language technologies.

The project is a collaboration between Aarhus University, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Southern Denmark, and the Alexandra Institute. DeiC Interactive HPC – UCloud plays a vital role in this work by providing high data security, scalable computing power, and, not least, an accessible, secure, national cloud platform that enables collaboration among project partners.

“UCloud forms the foundation for an important step in research digitalisation, as the platform provides easy access to computing power, enabling scalable data analysis and modelling, while also offering a secure environment for handling sensitive data. The platform also facilitates collaboration across institutions and allows us to manage data access as needed. This is particularly relevant in the DFM project, which includes many partners participating at different levels.”
Postdoc Kenneth Enevoldsen

Data security and computing power

Because AI models are often trained on sensitive data, it is crucial that data processing complies with both GDPR and Danish security standards. UCloud is ISO27001-certified and specifically designed to meet both Danish and EU requirements for secure data handling.

“In the DFM project, we work with very large amounts of data from a variety of sources – including sensitive data that the models are trained on – and this places high demands on data security. That is why UCloud is such a valuable tool for the project – precisely because of its high level of data security and access to scalable computing power.”
Postdoc Kenneth Enevoldsen

Although DFM also makes use of European supercomputers such as LUMI in Finland and Leonardo in Italy, the day-to-day operations of the project are heavily reliant on UCloud. In addition to being a springboard for high-performance computing, UCloud also provides a secure and user-friendly platform with a wide range of accessible applications – all essential for daily research, collaboration, data processing, and innovation across the project’s interdisciplinary team.

Critical infrastructure for Danish AI development

DFM’s principal investigators, Kristoffer Nielbo and Peter Schneider-Kamp, emphasise that the robust digital research environment provided by DeiC Interactive HPC – UCloud constitutes critical infrastructure. It streamlines workflows, enhances collaboration, and accelerates the development of both language and AI technologies.

“Without UCloud, the DFM project would have had to develop this type of digital infrastructure itself – with significant time and financial costs. The platform’s role in the project clearly demonstrates how robust, collaborative digital research environments are essential to Denmark’s AI strategies.”

By Jasper Riis-Hansen and Line Ejby Sørensen, Center for Humanities Computing (CHC), Aarhus University