Aionic: This is how he will defuse a ticking bomb
With the help of AI, robots and a large, sea-near factory, John-Reidar Johansen will solve several of the greatest challenges of our time. Norway has a unique opportunity to become a world leader in an enormous market, he believes.
- The proportion of people able to work is plummeting, as are birth rates. And people continue to move away from our rural areas! At the same time, far too many people are lonely in society and there is a lack of hands in the healthcare system. But we have found a way to solve many of these challenges," says John-Reidar Johansen, CEO and founder of Aionic AS, one of the member companies of Nordic Edge.
Johansen, who has a background in banking and finance, and from various parts of the real estate industry, has big ambitions. His aim is to get Norwegians, who "on pain of death" have to own their own homes, often heavily mortgaged, to become co-owners of a cooperative and let the cooperative own the homes. As a co-owner, you live safely and comfortably, but now without private debt, as the housing debt is taken care of by the cooperative.
Read also: Something is terribly wrong with the housing market(https://www.nrk.no/ytring/noe-er-riv-ruskende-galt-med-boligmarkedet-1.17685591)
Image: John-Reidar Johansen
Module-based homes
He will also build modular homes, made possible by AI, robots and a large, maritime factory at Haugaland Næringspark outside Haugesund.
- "Norway has a unique opportunity to become a premise supplier in a huge market that is now being fully robotized, namely the development and production of housing modules. Aionic AS has ALL the prerequisites for quickly setting up a factory that produces 20,000 housing modules a year. This requires technology. Capital. Expertise. And a large, pre-zoned site close to unique shipping opportunities to the market. "We have all this," says Johansen, who is also involved in the sustainability cooperative Comfort Gruppen SA and Sauda Comfortpark SA.
- "We need sustainable and attractive homes we can afford to live in. Imagine you are 70+ and feel the need for a slightly more comfortable everyday life, but your outdated detached house is located in a rural municipality. Your home is worth two million. You're debt-free, but an easy-care apartment in the city center will still cost more than you can scrape together, or want to borrow. What do you do then, asks Johansen.
Own together, not alone
He has the answer himself. According to the entrepreneur, we need to expand the ways in which we own homes. While the Norwegian line of ownership wants to make us homeowners, Johansen thinks it would be more socially friendly if Norwegians also had the opportunity to become co-owners of homes. Then the ownership of the homes and the entire debt could be held by a non-commercial cooperative*, which in turn would be owned by the residents.
The man behind Aionic AS believes that more of tomorrow's homes should be built from modules, quickly, efficiently and sustainably.
- The company has an exciting business model and is a good example of a member of the Smartcity cluster. Their aim is to solve major societal challenges with AI, robots, i.e. the latest in technology, while at the same time having clear elements of traditional industry. The model is also scalable," says Trygve A. Meyer, head of the Smartcity cluster in Nordic Edge.
- "We want help from the network that Smartcity has, both to connect us with other ideas that make our model better, but also because Trygve and others have large networks, also within the political environment. We need to solve the complex challenges we face together, not separately," says John-Reidar Johansen.
*Cooperatives are businesses that are owned and managed by their members, or as in the case of Sauda ComfortPark SA, by its future residents. A cooperative should serve the long-term interests of its co-owners. The UN declared 2025 to be the International Year of Cooperatives, the most sustainable organizational model we have, according to the UN.
There are around 1,500 cooperatives in Norway. The cooperatives in Norway have 88,000 employees, a turnover of NOK 250 billion and 4.4 million co-owners (Samfunnsøkonomisk analyse 2022). Coop SA and Felleskjøpet Agri SA are examples of Norwegian cooperatives.
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