A Giant Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence Will Be Established in the Czech Republic. It Will Receive 1.3 Billion Crowns!

It will be led by the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague, in collaboration with the Central European Institute of Technology of the Brno University of Technology. The EU has decided to support this project, allocating 50 million euros, which will span six years. Approximately 30 million euros (according to other sources, 15 million euros) will come from European structural funds. Additional funding will be invested by the Czech and German governments through various programmes. This was announced on Wednesday by Vladimír Mařík, the scientific director of CIIRC, who is leading the project. According to Mařík, around 200 projects applied for the grant, with only about ten ultimately receiving funding.

This project, referred to as RICAIP, has pitted two experts, Mařík and Petráček, against each other. Disagreements between the two specialists led to Mařík's dismissal from his position at CIIRC in June.

Andrej Babiš welcomed the project's success in securing EU support. "The Czech Republic has just received a unique opportunity to set the direction for the industry of the future," he stated on his Twitter.

Sources: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/…/2777450-v-cesku-vznikne-obr…

https://www.ctidoma.cz/…/2019-04-04-umela-inteligence-v-ces…

https://www.lidovky.cz/…/v-cesku-vznikne-vyzkumne-centrum-u…