September 9 (SeeNews) - US software developer VMware Inc (NYSE:VMW) said it will award a $1.5 million (1.49 million euro) grant to Bulgaria's Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology (INSAIT) to support deep technology research in the country and the rest of Europe.
The financing will be granted by VMware’s university research fund and will be used to attract top researchers and scientists to newly-launched INSAIT, the US firm said in a press release on Wednesday.
The founding grant aims to establish and develop the new institute as well as to attract students for research in diverse areas of computer science and systems engineering, including artificial intelligence, security, storage and networking.
“For VMware, this is an investment in new technologies research, consistent with our innovation strategy,” Diana Stefanova, VMware vice president of regional site strategy, noted in the statement.
INSAIT was established in April in partnership with Swiss technology universities ETH Zurich and EPFL and operates as a special unit of Sofia University.
In April, INSAIT attracted a combined investment of over 12 million levs ($6.2 million/6.1 million euro) from US technology giants Google, DeepMind and AWS.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)