The Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology (INSAIT) hosted a key official visit by Prof. Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC is Europe’s premier organization for funding frontier, high-risk, high-reward research, with more than €16 billion allocated for the 2021–2027 period to support breakthrough scientific advances across disciplines.

Today in Sofia, INSAIT – the Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” – and the Bulgarian National Audit Office launched Odis, an intelligent AI assistant designed to support public procurement auditors. The pilot project was unveiled during the “Artificial Intelligence and IT Audit in Safeguarding of the Public Resources” conference, organized by the National Audit Office.

INSAIT is pleased to announce a new $1 million USD fund from Google, helping us deepen our commitment to open and inclusive AI research and innovation in Central and Eastern Europe. This latest support includes funding to advance INSAIT’s research mission, cloud compute resources to accelerate advanced AI projects, and investment in local outreach initiatives such as the Tech Series and educational programs like Explorer.

INSAIT, part of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” has announced SPEAR-1 – the first open robotic foundation model developed in Europe, achieving state-of-the-art performance with up to 20 times less robotic training data.