History
SICS was founded more than 20 years ago as a result of an initiative from Ericsson and Televerket (at the time the state owned national telecom operator). In 1983, people from Ericsson, Televerket, and KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology) got together for a meeting at the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences. They discussed the need for an institute focusing on applied computer science. After some preparatory work, including study trips to the USA, SICS was founded in October 1985.
From the beginning, SICS was located in the Stockholm suburb Kista, where it can still be found today. In the early eighties, there were plans to move the entire KTH from central Stockholm to Kista. These plans were later abandoned, but it was decided to locate parts of the university as well as new research institutes in Kista. Today, Kista has developed into one of Europe’s premier ICT clusters hosting big parts of KTH, several research institutes (including SICS), and a large number of ICT companies – most notably Ericsson.
Initially, the research at SICS was organized into three research groups: Design methodology, Logic programming, and Knowledge Based Systems. Two early focus areas were the programming language Prolog and parallel systems. SICS implemented a first version of its own Prolog platform, SICStus Prolog, already in 1986. Later on, this system developed into one of the world´s most recognized Prolog platforms – a position it has retained to this day. The early efforts in the area of parallel systems also developed over time and inspired SICS research in e.g. distributed systems and peer-to-peer technologies. Today, following the recent switch to multi-core processors, programming of parallel systems has become a major priority for the global IT industry.
Over the next few years, SICS initial focus on programming languages and parallel systems was extended with research on virtual reality, mobile telephony systems, Internet technologies, human-computer interaction, and remote collaboration to name just a few areas.
Milestones
| 1985 | SICS was founded |
| 1987 | A three year agreement is signed with industry stakeholders |
| 1987 | Researchers from SICS participate in the standardization work for GSM |
| 1988 | SICS moves into its current office facilities in the Electrum building in Kista |
| 1990 | SICS developes a software that is capable of transmitting audio and video over the Internet |
| 1991 | DIVE, a platform for distributed virtual worlds, is realeased |
| 1991 | A tool for automatic frequency planning for cellular networks is developed in SICStus prolog. This tool will later become a very successful product from Ericsson |
| 1992 | DIVE is licensed to approx. 20 external customers, including NASA and the American armed forces |
| 2005 | Celebration of "20 years of future" |