INSAIT wins $500,000 Google award to accelerate AI research in Sofia
On Monday, 2 February 2026, INSAIT at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" received a $500,000 award from Google for its results in AI research at both national and international levels.
This follows a $1 million award in the autumn of last year, bringing Google's total backing of the institute to over $6 million. It's a clear signal that Sofia is becoming a serious node for AI research in Eastern Europe.
The funds will be directed into strategic areas: computer vision, robotics, and machine learning. For engineers, that likely means more publications, open resources, and collaboration opportunities coming out of the region.
INSAIT (Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology) is based in Sofia and is the first institute of its kind in Eastern Europe to attract globally recognized researchers in AI and technology.
- Talent and collaboration: Expect stronger research groups in vision, robotics, and core ML-potential partners for industry pilots and co-authored work.
- Hiring signal: Funding often precedes new roles-watch for research engineer, PhD, and postdoc positions.
- Open science: Keep an eye on datasets, benchmarks, and papers that can feed your product experiments or infra roadmap.
- EU location advantage: For teams working with EU data or compliance constraints, a Sofia-based partner can be practical.
Where to learn more
Explore INSAIT's work and updates: insait.ai
Google's AI initiatives: ai.google
What to do next
- Track upcoming calls, seminars, and papers from INSAIT for collaboration threads.
- If you're building vision or robotics features, map your roadmap to likely research outputs from Sofia's ecosystem.
- Upskill your team in ML fundamentals aligned with big-tech stacks via AI courses by leading companies.
#INSAIT #AI #Sofia
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