Demand for doctors is growing in the building services engineering field: The AI Champion project fosters multidisciplinary expertise

AI Champion is not just a project but a pioneer in the building services and construction sector, with doctoral researchers at its core. They see how AI agents are transforming building services engineering processes and what their development and implementation require from the consortium’s organisations and from their different functions.

‘This project is a fantastic opportunity for doctoral students to see how research has a tangible impact on companies’ business operations and on our society. Currently, very few people in Finland are earning doctorates in building services engineering, which is not enough to address the future shortage of skilled professionals. With the rise of data center construction and the green transition, building services engineering will soon be one of the most demanding specialties in the construction industry’, Associate Professor and project coordinator at Tampere University Piia Sormunen says.  

In order for investments in the billions to leave a lasting legacy of expertise in Finland and foster exportable expertise, the sector must develop rapidly and invest in university-level education. The AI Champion project currently employs approximately 15 doctoral researchers from the Universities of Tampere and Oulu.

‘We are particularly proud of each of our doctoral researcher in this project and of the interdisciplinary expertise that is emerging in the field. In August 2025, Tampere University launched Finland’s first Master of Science in Building Services Engineering program, and our project continues to contribute to this promising effort to cultivate experts in the field’, Sormunen continues.

The first Researchers' Day had a positive response

In addition to weekly meetings, the AI Champion project consortium meets several times a year to share information about what has been developed, tested, and learned within the project. The first researchers’ day, held in October, was met with an enthusiastic response, and more of them were planned.

‘It is valuable not only for the researchers but also for the project as a whole that we researchers come together to discuss opportunities for collaboration among ourselves. Collaboration among researchers is key to the project’s success and also creates contacts outside the project that may be useful in the future,” say Vappu Schroderus and Laura Kauppinen, doctoral researchers at the University of Oulu.

‘Face-to-face meetings take our interdisciplinary research a giant leap forward, as we’re able to go over our research topics, their intersections, and common ground right away, discussing them and developing our ideas further. Naturally, we started planning the next Researchers Day even before the first one ended’, says Osku Torro, a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University. 

In the Business Finland funded AI Champion Co-Innovation project, we aim to find out the design and construction challenges in Building Services and create a 100 AI Agents to solve these challenges and enhance the supply chains. Co-operators and funders in AI Champion are Tampere University, University of Oulu, Granlund, Fira, Koja Chiller, KONE Oyj, ETS NORD, Kiilto, GF BFS, Nimlas, LVI-INFO, Sähköteknisen Kaupan Liitto ry and Airlyse. Read more from the project page.