This year, Unikie celebrates its 10th anniversary – a full decade of innovation and product development in close cooperation with our customers and partners. To mark the special occasion, Unikie opened a new technology Test Center in Kaarina, Finland, and hosted an Innovation Summit at the facility in June 2025.
The event was packed with insightful keynotes on AI, embedded security and automated vehicle logistics. Also, a representative from Deutsche Telekom, the leading European telecom operator, took the stage as Unikie and Deutsche Telekom officially announced their global partnership for transforming automated vehicle marshalling.
To top things off, the audience got a chance to see Unikie’s Automated Marshalling Solution in action, as the newly-opened Test Center is the primary test site for the technology.
From Vision to Reality
In their welcoming words, Unikie CEO Juha Ala-Laurila and CBO Vesa Kiviranta explained that from day one, the company founders had a vision to build a global company that drives technological innovation. Autonomous vehicles have been part of Unikie’s story from the start, and the vision has now evolved to opening of the test site and partnering with Deutsche Telekom.
Helping customers’ product development with software engineering services is also a key part of Unikie’s history. One of Unikie’s very first consulting assignments was a project for Sandvik, the global mining technology company. At the event, Sandvik’s Teemu Raitis shared the company’s long tradition of developing automated solutions for demanding conditions. Today, top trends include the electrification of vehicles and building flexible, modular solutions.
Of course, Unikie does not work alone; the company collaborates with customers, partners and joint ventures. To showcase this, Patria’s Juha Välimäki talked about the eALLIANCE ecosystem, where companies co-innovate to create solutions for international markets. Unikie is a part of the alliance and leads the AIVOT project that focuses on automating large numbers of unmanned vehicles.
Traficom: Authorities’ View on Automated Driving
Next, Unikie’s Jiri Uitto was joined on stage by Janne Huhtamäki from Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, that oversees the regulation for traffic and oversees Finnish cybersecurity, for example.
In order to be safe, automated driving requires regulation. Janne Huhtamäki explained how Traficom cooperates with companies to both keep the roads safe and also enable innovations.
As one example, grocery delivery robots first operated under trial permits and once the solution was proven safe, the legislation was amended to include a new vehicle class and the robots are today business as usual.
For solutions not meant for the public roads, like Unikie’s marshalling solution, there’s no need to consider public traffic safety. Instead, Traficom is very much interested in things like cybersecurity. Janne Huhtamäki emphasized the Security by Design approach where security is baked into products from the very beginning and considers the product’s entire lifecycle.
All in all, both speakers emphasized a good working relationship between the regulatory authorities and businesses. After all, both share a common goal: innovative new solutions that are safe to use.
Deutsche Telekom: Industrial Metaverse in Product Development
Deutsche Telekom, one of the top global brands, has its own T-Systems Automotive Team that consists of over 4,000 automotive experts that work with manufacturers to connect their vehicles to Deutsche Telekom’s network.
At the Innovation Summit, Dr. Christian Hort delivered an eye-opening presentation on the virtual first vision for manufacturing.
Powered by major advancements in computing power and leapfrog developments in simulation software, manufacturers can soon plan their products and factories virtually, before investing a single Euro in physical implementation.
The Industrial Metaverse enables simulation and interaction with objects and processes in a virtual environment, promising significant benefits in efficiency, productivity, resilience and quality.
As an example of Deutsche Telekom’s services, Dr. Hort highlighted the cooperation between Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom and Unikie for automated vehicle marshalling as part of the AutoLog project.
Unikie: Where Are We With AI?
In his presentation, Unikie’s CTO Niko Haatainen briefly discussed the top trends and developments in AI-assisted solutions and product development.
Due to decreased hardware costs and increased software capabilities, Edge AI is quickly becoming a reality. With the possibility to run small AI language models locally, developers can make the local unit smarter, avoiding network bandwidth issues and mitigating potential security issues involved in sending data to the cloud.
Generative AI and AI Agents are introducing new ways of interacting with systems. Instead of working on a physical UI controlling the system, the future operator can use natural interaction – language or gestures – to give high-level requests to the system. The tasks are carried out by autonomous AI agents, working together to complete the work and solve any problems that might show up.
Finally, Network as Code is a key enabler for autonomous vehicles, for instance. In this model, vehicles or devices can request guaranteed network bandwidth from commercial networks. This is a major game changer in any solution that requires low-latency connectivity spread over a large geographical area.
With all advancements with AI, security remains an even more important element in the overall design. This can be done by carefully sandboxing the critical elements of the solution from the advanced interactions enabled by AI, for example.
Live Demo: Unikie’s Marshalling Solution
As the last official item on the agenda, Innovation Summit participants got to see a live demonstration of Unikie’s Marshalling Solution at the Kaarina Test Center.
Designed for vehicle plants, bus depots, logistics centers and other use cases, the solution changes the ways vehicles are moved within gated areas, by completely automating vehicle driving and services without the need for drivers or other human interactions.
See the video filmed at the Unikie Innovation Summit below.
