Project exploring the potential of generative AI in improving software production receives €840 000 in funding

Project exploring the potential of generative AI in improving software production receives €840 000 in funding

Business Finland has granted the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Jyväskylä a total of 840 000 euros in funding for Generative AI for the Software Development Life Cycle project. The aim is to explore the use of generative AI to support software development throughout the entire lifecycle of a software product.

In addition to the University of Jyväskylä, the consortium project involves five Finland based companies. The total funding for the project in Finland is over €6 million. The University of Jyväskylä's share of the budget is €1.2 million, of which 30% is funded from its own budget. The project also includes several foreign partners.

According to Professor Tommi Mikkonen, the project leader in Jyväskylä, the main objective of is to increase the efficiency of software development processes and improve the quality of software products.

"Large language models can be used effectively in all stages of the software development life cycle, from design and development to testing and maintenance. Our goal is to also develop customized AI models and tools to support the software development process as a whole," Mikkonen says.

The companies involved in the research project are expected to directly implement the research results as part of their own business operations.

Large language models can support software development effectively even with minimal task-specific training, but their use is still experimental and comes with its own risks and challenges.

"The project will focus on exploring challenges related to privacy and legal issues, ecological and social sustainability, reliability, and bias in AI training materials," Mikkonen concludes.

Tommi Mikkonen