Luentoni Helsingin yliopistolla 29.1.2026
Good morning everyone,
It is a pleasure to speak with you about today’s topic, and of Finland’s place in the global political economy at a moment when the very architecture of globalization is being re‑written.
For decades, we lived through what many called the era of “easy globalization”: an age in which markets and efficiency were the guiding stars, supply chains stretched across continents, and prosperity seemed to flow from specialization and comparative advantage.
That era may not have totally ended—but it has been fundamentally reshaped by geopolitics, technology, and the strategic race for resources.
Today’s world is one in which states vie to control chokepoints in value chains, secure access to critical minerals, and build defensible technological moats around their core capabilities.
In this lecture, I will argue that Finland can thrive in this new era by coupling clean power and trustworthy institutions with strategic capabilities in mining and refining, sovereign data and AI, quantum computing, space‑based sensing, and Arctic maritime expertise.
In short: resilience and with openness; science and tech with statecraft; long‑term thinking, simultaneously with seizing opportunities in a short‑term
As the Minister of Economic Affairs I have some key responsibilities:
First and foremost, helping Finnish companies succeed, from micro-companies to multi-nationals, from underground mining operations to remote monitoring from space … and everything in between.
Secondly, to implement and carry out technology policies with which we can leverage all our advantages to the fullest in today’s and tomorrow’s world. This happens through Business Finland and VTT, the state research agency.
Thirdly, corporate financing and the national promotion agencies providing equity or debt are also part of my portfolio. The most prominent of these are TESI and Finnvera.
I am also responsible for security of supply issues.
One becomes almost exhausted as the list goes on and on.
This part of my portfolio, secures the functionality of business and, of the society on a whole, in the event of a crisis.
Actually and fortunately, Finland is the world’s leading country in this area.Should something happen in this area, of course the implications would be massive, but at least we are well prepared and have maintained this ability with rigor over the years.
Many other countries are now having to rebuild their abilities in this area, and sure we are helping our allies and partners.
Lastly and related partly to the first point, the Financial Markets Department of the Ministry of Finance is also part of my portfolio.
This department regulates the financial markets, with the aim of ensuring well-functional financial markets.
This part of the Ministry of Finance fits well together with driving growth, as a functioning capital market is central to the financing of companies.
Typical “tools or actions” to reach these goals are setting policies, such as innovation, mineral, space policies as well as internationalization programs and promotion of foreign investments.
In practice the tools are directing of public spending through subsidies, loans and also equity funding, as well as regulation and deregulation.
The day today work is also active Government to Government, people to people interactions, hearing views of high-level politicians, officials and global and domestic business leaders…and sharing Finnish positions.
It is also practical, hands-on sales and marketing of Finnish abilities and the companies, to drive economic growth.
Let me begin with a simple proposition.
In 2026, the decisive determinant of national power is the capacity to build and sustain a science‑based technological moat—a defensible lead in complex, R&D‑intensive sectors where knowledge, talent, and infrastructure compound over time.
The hallmark of such a moat is control over what I will call our cognitive infrastructure: sovereign models and data, secure compute, and the networks that tie them together.
This cognitive infrastructure matters because it underpins everything from industrial productivity and healthcare to defense and diplomacy.
Countries that master advanced semiconductors, modern biotech, and the orchestration of compute at scale create leverage at the most critical points of global value chains.
They set the rules, they define standards, and they possess instruments of influence that reach far beyond traditional tariffs or currency policy.
The visible hand of the state has returned to economic life.
The reasons are not mysterious.
First, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine exposed the fragility of just‑in‑time supply chains that were optimized for price, not resilience.
Second, technological bottlenecks—from lithography equipment to specialized chemicals—are too intricate and too strategic to be left entirely to the spontaneous workings of the market.And third, rival powers have emerged to challenge the unipolar western dominated global order. They have not hesitated to wield export controls, industrial subsidies, and infrastructure finance as tools of national strategy.
Now the US has adapted many of these tools and the world is even more complicated.
This is the context in which Finland must make choices.
It is the chessboard on which we must place our pieces—calmly, deliberately, and with an eye to the endgame.
To understand the stakes, we need to look clearly at the global scramble for resources.
The world’s energy transition and digital transformation are built on a foundation of minerals: lithium for batteries, cobalt and nickel for cathodes, rare earth elements for magnets and guidance systems, high‑purity silicon for semiconductors, and graphite for anodes.
These are not niche inputs; they are the bricks of modern civilization.
Control over their extraction, refining, and distribution confers power.
It creates dependencies that can be managed and, in crises, weaponized.
We have seen how export restrictions on specialized materials reverberate through industries—how a regulation drafted in one capital can idle a factory continents away.
We have also seen the limits of neat separation.
Commodity markets themselves are fungible; ownership is cross‑border; and a mine with Western shareholders can still send ore to an Eastern refinery if the economics and logistics dictate it.
But, on top of this, there is a of course a political reality with tariff setting, sanctions, which complicate matters and has become almost a daily changing factor to contend with.
If we want real strategic autonomy, we must invest not only in upstream production but in allied refining capacity, traceability standards, certification regimes, and transparent trading ecosystems that make coercion harder and accountability stronger.
Where does Finland stand in this?
We possess assets that many larger nations envy.
We have significant reserves of nickel and cobalt, and we retain refining capabilities that are increasingly rare within the European Union.
We have a tradition of responsible mining, a regulatory culture that values environmental stewardship, and a society that understands the importance of long‑term industrial policy.
These strengths are amplified by our energy landscape.
In 2025, Finland had among the lowest electricity prices in Europe, and the bulk of that electricity was clean—nuclear, hydro, wind, and other non‑fossil sources.
The importance of this was highlighted when I recently visited the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi-Arabia.
The opening panel was between world’s largest investors and leading financial institutions, at least in the Western and Middle-East spheres. Companies like Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, Citi and JP Morgan.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, was asked “what is the top asset now?” …he answered: “Well-functioning electrical grid”.
Finland’s, affordable, low‑carbon electricity is to a large part a result of decades of smart investment into our grid.
Now our electricity power is not just a climate virtue; it is a magnet for industry.
It draws investment in green steel, hydrogen, battery materials, and high‑performance computing.
It attracts data infrastructure that, if managed wisely, can serve our economy and our security for decades.
This brings me to data centers and artificial intelligence.
Once considered back‑office facilities, data centers are now strategic assets—the digital age’s equivalent of ports and power plants.
They enable cloud services, AI training, and the continuity of government and commercial operations.
But they are also hungry machines that require vast amounts of electricity and water, and they imprint themselves onto local grids and landscapes.
Finland’s challenge is to pace their growth, prioritize projects that bring genuine value‑add, and design mechanisms—tariffs, incentives, and conditions—that tie large compute loads to domestic innovation commitments.
If we can channel data center investment into the creation of sovereign AI capabilities, the nurturing of local startups, and the development of specialized Finnish applications in industry and government, we will convert raw infrastructure into a durable moat.
To facilitate this, we should drive the demand-side of datacenters, ie. support use and application of datacenters.
Finland has some unique datasets for example in healthcare and mineral deposits. With smart use of AI, both could create significant value and strategic benefit to Finland.
Quantum computing is a strategic frontier that perfectly illustrates the interplay of science and statecraft.
It is tempting to describe quantum computing as exotic—a laboratory curiosity confined to teams of physicists tinkering at millikelvin temperatures.
Myself, I studied a lot of quantum physics in the late 1990s and early 2000s, quantum computing was essentially a theory, concept back then. Now they are a reality.
Quantum technology’s implications are profoundly practical.
Quantum systems exploit superposition and entanglement to explore solution spaces that classical machines struggle to traverse.
In cryptography, that means certain public‑key schemes are rendered vulnerable, which is why post‑quantum cryptography is not an academic exercise but a national security imperative.
In optimization, quantum‑inspired algorithms promise gains in logistics, power dispatch, and portfolio construction.In materials and pharma, quantum simulations hold out the prospect of designing catalysts and compounds that accelerate decarbonization and treat disease.
In defense and military applications, quantum technologies like spanning secure quantum communications, quantum sensing, and high‑performance quantum computing — are becoming decisive enablers, reshaping intelligence collection, secure command‑and‑control, and precision targeting in contested environments.
Finland’s strength in quantum computing rests on a deep scientific heritage in cryogenics.
In the late 1960s, Professor Olli Lounasmaa founded the Low Temperature Laboratory at what is now Aalto University, laying the groundwork for millikelvin refrigeration that superconducting qubits require to function.
From that foundation grew world‑class expertise in dilution refrigerators, cryogenic wiring, and the painstaking craft of eliminating noise and stabilizing quantum systems.
This is not a capability that can be conjured overnight.
It is an accumulated body of knowledge, embedded in people and institutions, that forms a genuine moat.
Today, Finnish companies produce ultra‑low‑temperature systems used by leading quantum labs around the world, and our hardware teams design and fabricate superconducting quantum processors with ambition and credibility.
Aalto and VTT continue to drive research in error mitigation, hybrid architectures, and the algorithms that will make devices useful for specific industrial tasks.
Our advantage is both scientific and structural: a collaborative ecosystem that ties academia to industry and aligns public support with private ingenuity.
Why emphasize this in a lecture on geoeconomics?
Because quantum computing is one of the fields where the race is explicitly geopolitical.
The United States, China, and the European Union have all framed quantum capabilities as instruments of national strategy.
It is important that Finland continues to build capabilities by enhancing research in the field and to further grow the “quantum-ecosystem” that has been created here.
If we get this right, quantum will not be a curiosity on the edge of our policy agenda, but a pillar of our long‑term leverage.
For my part, I was able to promote the Finnish quantum industry and our know-how at the Quantum World Congress, in the US in September of last year.
We were well perceived and knowledge about Finland’s expertise in the area of quantum computing was solidified.
Key meetings were held with the influential Office of Science and Technology, whom I met again in November in Washington and will meet key officials again in March this year in Helsinki, and later in connection with the Multilateral Quantum Development Group that we aim to host.
Let us turn from the very small—the qubit—to the very large: Earth observation from space.
Here, too, Finland has carved out a distinctive role that few would have predicted a generation ago or even 10 years ago.
Space is no longer the preserve of superpower agencies; it is a domain where agile, deep‑tech companies can deliver global impact.
Our leadership in Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR, deserves particular attention. SAR satellites emit radar pulses and measure the returning signals, synthesizing a large “aperture” as they move to generate high‑resolution images in all weather and at all hours.
Unlike optical imaging, SAR can see through clouds and darkness.
It can measure subtle changes in the Earth’s surface, track ships on the high seas, monitor flood dynamics, and map ice thickness with extraordinary precision.
Finnish Ice-Eye has built one of the world’s most capable commercial SAR constellations, delivering near‑real‑time data to governments, insurers, and humanitarian actors.
When a dam breaks, SAR images cut through cloud and chaos to show where water is moving and where relief is needed.
When illegal fishing fleets operate in the shadows, SAR’s wide‑area surveillance reveals patterns that optical sensors miss.
When a military crisis unfolds, SAR can provide consistent, day‑night coverage of contested terrain.
This is dual‑use technology in the best sense: serving civil protection and climate resilience while offering sovereign sensing to allied security communities.
What makes this a geoeconomic asset is not just the satellites but the data economy around them.
The companies building SAR constellations in Finland are part of a network that includes payload designers, component suppliers, ground segment specialists, and analytics firms that turn raw radar returns into actionable insight.
The value is cumulative.
Each launch adds capacity; each dataset enriches history; each algorithm improves detection.
This compounding dynamic—so familiar in software and AI—exists in space as well.
And it is precisely the kind of dynamic that national strategies should nurture with patient capital, export credit, and cross‑border partnerships that expand markets while keeping governance trusted and transparent.
The Finnish Space Cluster today is vibrant, with some 200 companies and research institutions such as Aalto University, VTT and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
My ministry oversees the co-ordination of the space industry.
Together with industry actors we prepared the Finnish Space Strategy, which sets key goals for industry in 2030.
Central goals are; further utilization of space solutions, developing the operational environment for space activities and increasing international co-operation.
We continue to promote the growth of this industry too, through from Business Finland.
Ice-Eye, the company I mentioned earlier, received one of the largest subsidies in the history of Business Finland in 2025, a clear sign of the strategic importance of this sector and also an excellent example of industrial policy.
From space and Ice-Eye, let us come back down to sea level and to real ice.
Finland’s icebreakers are emblematic of how specialized engineering can translate directly into strategic autonomy.
Our shipyards and maritime engineers have spent decades designing and building vessels that keep Arctic and sub‑Arctic sea lanes open through harsh winters.
These ships are not just impressive feats of naval architecture; they are instruments of continuity in regions where harsh winters cut of maritime logistics and roads are not an option…like for example Finland.
As climate change alters the Arctic, northern routes become more navigable and more contested.
Paradoxically, climate change increases the need for icebreaking.
Year‑round access increases economic interest and geopolitical attention. Icebreakers are the enabling technology for this emerging theater.
They ensure that LNG, critical minerals, and other cargoes move when ice would otherwise constrain them.
They support search and rescue operations, scientific missions, and naval presence.
They reduce the seasonal vulnerability of supply chains and give nations with the capability a voice in Arctic governance.
Finland’s reputation in icebreaking—efficiency, environmental performance, reliability—allows us to supply vessels and expertise that shape how the North is used and by whom.
During my visit to Washington in November, I also had a chance to reaffirm the Ice Pact co-operation in the US Coast Guard headquarters.
This is a Ice-breaker development and procurement program between the US, Canada and Finland.
This co-operation is industrial policy too. It combines the commitment of these nations with real practical actions to reach the set goals of the Ice Pact program. All participants benefit from the co-operation in ways that are important to them. Other likeminded nations may join the program later.
At this point, it is natural to ask how the competition between the United States and China threads through all of these domains and what that rivalry means for Finland.
The U.S.–China relationship is the central axis of contemporary geopolitics.
It is not only a military balance; it is a contest for technological preeminence, resource access, and normative leadership in the institutions that govern trade, finance, and data.
The fallout is felt everywhere.
Supply chains are being re‑routed to accommodate export controls on semiconductors and AI chips; rare‑earth markets are shifting under the weight of tariffs and licensing regimes; infrastructure finance has become strategic, with corridors and ports linked to resource flows and political influence.
For Finland, the first consequence is uncertainty.
Sanctions and tariffs can be implemented much faster than factories can adapt.
If a key component is suddenly caught in an export ban, a production line that depends on it may stall.
If a mineral’s refining is concentrated in a single jurisdiction, a diplomatic spat can ripple into our industrial planning.
The second consequence is pressure.
As blocs harden, we will feel the pull of alignment—through NATO and the EU on the one hand, and through market realities on the other.
Navigating this requires clarity of principle and flexibility of method.
Our principles are straightforward: we stand within the EU and other likeminded democracies; we value open, interoperable technologies; and we believe in transparent, ethical governance of data and trade.
Our methods must be pragmatic.
We will friend‑shore where strategic risk is highest; we will diversify where concentration is dangerous; and we will seize opportunities to specialize in areas where Finland can be indispensable.
There are real opportunities in this rivalry.
The United States and the European Union should together be investing heavily in allied supply chains for critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and strategic compute.
Finland, with its clean power, refining capability, and cryogenic heritage, can anchor segments of these chains.
We can host green metallurgy clusters that feed into European automotive and energy systems.
We can build data infrastructure designed for sovereign AI with robust privacy and security guarantees.
We can lead in quantum hardware and space‑based sensing, supplying technologies that allies need and trust.
And in the Arctic, our icebreakers and maritime expertise is in high-demand, as activity in the area is increasing.
To transform opportunity into durable advantage, we must align policy tools with industrial realities.
The first tool is stability.
Mining and refining projects have long timelines.
Investors need predictable permitting, clear fiscal terms, and credible community engagement.
Environmental standards must be rigorous and trusted, but they must also be timely and navigable so that good projects proceed.
The second tool is capability.
Upstream mining without downstream refining does not deliver autonomy.
We should build more allied refining capacity in Finland, under transparent governance, with traceability from mine to magnet and cathode.
EU based, strategic stockpiles of critical materials should be sized and rotated in a way that smooths shocks without distorting markets.
The third tool is infrastructure.
Our grid is a competitive advantage; we must keep it so with continued investment, maintaining flexibility to accommodate both heavy industry and large compute.
Where data center growth risks crowding out industrial value‑add, we should strive to tie projects to domestic R&D commitments and ensure that Finnish talent and companies benefit.
The fourth tool is science diplomacy.
Finland’s credibility rests on substance.
When we show up with quantum refrigerators, SAR constellations, and green power that actually works at scale, partners listen.
We should deepen cooperation with the United States and also within the EU on semiconductors, quantum, and space, forming consortia that align export controls and standards while cultivating markets that reward openness and security.
The fifth tool is resilience testing.
We must plan for coercion scenarios: sudden export bans on a crucial input; a shipping lane disruption; a cyber incident that targets data infrastructure.
Stress‑tests, tabletop exercises, and cross‑government coordination should convert theory into preparedness.
In fact, this is exactly with the Security of Supply team and the National Emergency Supply Agency that the ministry manages.
None of this is without risk.
Corporate alignment with state policy can raise reputational questions if not handled with integrity.
Long project cycles can be buffeted by political winds.
Global capital can reroute swiftly, and domestic politics must reconcile national interest with local concerns.
The answer is governance: environmental protection balanced with business needs, increases employment and that earns social license; community benefit agreements that are tangible and fair; bipartisan frameworks that survive electoral cycles; and transparency that keeps the public trust.
If we are clear about our goals and honest about our trade‑offs, the Finnish model—pragmatic, ethical, technologically sophisticated—can be our brand in a crowded world.
Allow me to close by returning to the theme of autonomy.
Strategic autonomy is not isolation.
It is the capacity to make our own choices, to absorb shocks without losing our footing, and to contribute to the common security and prosperity of our allies from a position of strength.
In practical terms, it means clean, reliable energy that powers our industry; it means critical minerals and refining that feed our factories and those of our partners; it means sovereign data and AI that we control and trust; it means quantum and space capabilities that give us insight and leverage; and it means ships that break ice so that trade does not freeze with the seasons.
Finland cannot control the tides of geopolitics, but we can set our sails with judgment and skill.
We can invest where science compounds; regulate where resilience demands; partner where values align; and compete where we can be world‑class.
If we do this—calmly, patiently, and ambitiously—then in a geoeconomic world of resource rivalries and technological races, Finland will be not merely a passenger carried by currents, but a navigator charting a confident course.
And this concludes my argument.
Thank you.