Arne Halaas (born 20 September 1943) is a Norwegian profiled Professor emeritus in

computer technology Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientif ...

and

telematics Telematics is an interdisciplinary field encompassing telecommunications, vehicular technologies (road transport, road safety, etc.), electrical engineering (sensors, instrumentation, wireless communications, etc.), and computer science (multimedia ...

at the

Norwegian University of Science and Technology The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU; ) is a public university, public research university in Norway and the largest in terms of enrollment. The university's headquarters is located in Trondheim (city), Trondheim, with region ...

(NTNU). Halaas was central in the development of the technology that led to Fast Search & Transfer ASA (FAST), which was later acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

for NOK 6.6 billion (or approximately $1.2 billion U.S.) on April 24, 2008.

Biography

Halaas was Head of the Computer and Information Department at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is ...

from 1982 to 1984, and from 1993 to 1994. From 1981 to 1982 he was a visiting professor at the

University of Kaiserslautern The University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (German: ''Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau'', also known as RPTU) is a public research university in Kaiserslautern and Landau in der Pfalz, Germany. The university wa ...

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; ) is a town in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, 666 kilometers (414 m ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. From 1994 to 1995 he was a visiting professor at the

Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier The Montpellier Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics, and Microelectronics (French: ''Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier'', LIRMM) is a joint research entity ( UMR 5506) of the University of Mont ...

(LIRMM) at the

University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier () is a public university, public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous opera ...

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Since 1981 Halaas has been working on special purpose search engines which has led to the cofounding of the three companies Turbit AS (1987), Fast Search & Transfer ASA (1997) and Interagon AS (2002). His research in algorithm construction and

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

was fundamental in the founding of the companies. Interagon specialized in complex search tasks for

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

, and has developed a super-fast microprocessor, a so-called Patent Matching Chip (PMC), for searching biological data to find disease genes and develop new medicines. FAST later became a major global actor on

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

s. The acquisition of FAST has led to more than 1000 jobs in 25 different countries. In addition to making Trondheim Norway's search technology capital, as the acquisition has led several search companies, such as

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

, Clustra, Microsoft and

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

, to establish development departments in the city. His research has also led to collaborative solutions for more than 1 billion people in

SharePoint SharePoint is a collection of enterprise content management and knowledge management tools developed by Microsoft. Launched in 2001, it was initially bundled with Windows Server as Windows SharePoint Server, then renamed to Microsoft Office ...

and

Office 365 Microsoft 365 (previously called Office 365) is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs form ...

. Halaas has since 1983 served on the editorial board of the VLSI Journal Integration and took part in establishing the

International Federation for Information Processing The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a global organisation for researchers and professionals working in the field of computing to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Established in 19 ...

(IFIP). In 2012 he was awarded a Rosing Honorary Prize and in 2014 he received an honorary award from the

Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences The Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (, NTVA) is a learned society based in Trondheim, Norway. Founded in 1955, the academy has about 500 members. It is a member of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technologica ...

Literature

* (no)Publications by Arne Halaas
in

BIBSYS BIBSYS is an administrative agency set up and organized by the Ministry of Education and Research (Norway), Ministry of Education and Research in Norway. They provide the exchange, storage and retrieval of data pertaining to research, teaching a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Halaas, Arne 1943 births Living people Norwegian computer scientists Academic staff of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology