Milestone Launches Project Hafnia for AI-Driven City Management
Milestone has initiated Project Hafnia, focusing on AI-driven solutions for urban infrastructure and traffic management. The pilot city for this initiative is Genoa, Italy. The project leverages computer vision technology, using high-quality video data that complies with European regulations, including GDPR and the AI Act. NVIDIA's NeMo Curator on NVIDIA DGX Cloud is used to train the video data.
Collaboration and Compliance
Milestone is among the first to adopt NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint for Smart City AI, a framework that optimizes city operations through digital twins and AI agents. The company is enhancing its data platform by generating synthetic video data using NVIDIA Cosmos, which processes real-world input to complement actual video footage.
This blend of real and synthetic video data supports the development and training of Vision Language Models (VLMs) in a way that prioritizes responsibility and regulatory compliance. Data processing is kept within European borders, thanks to cloud support from the European provider Nebius, ensuring adherence to regional data protection laws.
The AI applications within Project Hafnia cover smart traffic and transportation management, as well as safety and security improvements. VLMs link textual and visual data from images or videos, enabling AI to generate actionable insights and summaries. Milestone emphasizes that these efforts align with European legal standards, data diversity, and regulatory integrity.
Thomas Jensen, CEO of Milestone, stated: "With Project Hafnia, we are introducing the world's first platform that meets the EU's regulatory standards, powered by NVIDIA technology. Partnering with Nebius allows us to provide compliant, high-quality video data for training vision AI models, fully anchored in Europe. This supports the EU's commitment to transparency, fairness, and regulatory oversight in AI and technology, laying the groundwork for responsible AI innovation."
Genoa as the First Implementation
The initial service offering under Project Hafnia is a Visual Language Model tailored for transportation management, built on transportation data from Genoa. The model is powered by NVIDIA technology and trained with data that respects compliance and responsible sourcing.
Andrea Sinisi, Information Systems Officer for the City of Genoa, remarked: "AI is producing impressive results, and research is advancing continuously. We joined Project Hafnia to provide developers access to essential video data for training Vision AI models. This data-driven approach aligns with Italy’s Three-Year Plan for Information Technology, promoting digital transformation, especially within the Italian Public Administration."
Project Hafnia’s framework supports scalability, allowing the model and datasets to operate across various domains and data types. Participating cities will receive compliant datasets and fine-tuned VLMs under a controlled access license, advancing AI development in Europe while maintaining ethical standards.
The Role of Nebius
Nebius serves as Project Hafnia’s European cloud provider, operating EU-based data centers. This setup ensures digital sovereignty by keeping sensitive public sector data within European jurisdiction and compliant with data protection laws.
Roman Chernin, Chief Business Officer of Nebius, said: "Project Hafnia fits the kind of large-scale AI challenge Nebius is built to handle. Supporting AI today demands infrastructure capable of high-throughput, resilient workloads, and strict data control. Our EU-based data centers and integration with NVIDIA’s AI stack provide a platform that meets the highest standards for performance, privacy, and transparency."
Project Hafnia Data Platform
Project Hafnia functions as a 'trusted librarian' of AI-ready video data. The platform curates, tags, and delivers ethically sourced video data that meets regulatory standards for AI model training. Milestone stresses precision, compliance, and citizen privacy throughout the data handling process.
Through its extensive network of customers, distributors, and technology partners, Milestone organizes a comprehensive video data ecosystem that supports AI development in video analytics. The compliant datasets and fine-tuned Visual Language Models will be made available to participating cities under controlled access, supporting AI initiatives across Europe.
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