The Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) has achieved outstanding success in the thirteenth public competition of the SIGMA programme (Sub-objective 5) announced by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR). Only four projects out of nineteen succeeded, and three of them carry the imprint of Prague’s technical university. CTU will coordinate two applied research centres and will participate in a third in cooperation with the Brno University of Technology (BUT).
“I see this result as confirmation that CTU is made up of people who drive technological development in the Czech Republic. I greatly appreciate the time and enormous effort invested by everyone involved in the demanding preparation of the projects,” says CTU Vice-Rector for Science, Research and Doctoral Studies Prof. Jan Zeman. “I am also pleased about our involvement in a project coordinated by BUT. Cooperation between two such significant technical universities shows that in key areas of strategic research we are able to join forces and strengthen the competitiveness of our country,” he adds.
National Centre for Artificial Intelligence
The National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) aims to support the trustworthy and secure use of AI in the Czech Republic with a strong emphasis on social responsibility. CTU will coordinate this centre for six years, focusing on faster technology transfer into practice and the maximum use of capacities across disciplines. One of the goals is to strengthen the influence of scientific knowledge on important political decision-making.
“The National Centre for Artificial Intelligence connects six academic institutions, more than thirty industrial partners, and public administration institutions,” explains Associate Professor Přemysl Šůcha from the Department of Industrial Informatics at the CIIRC CTU, one of the two authors of the project. The other author, Associate Professor Tomáš Kroupa from the Department of Computer Science at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, CTU, adds: “We place great emphasis on sharing knowledge across disciplines, from computer science and energy to security and healthcare, as well as robotics and autonomous systems. Cooperation with business and the systematic development of trustworthy AI in the Czech Republic are also very important to us. We welcome as many students as possible to join the project and are ready to support those who are interested.”
Centre for Smart and Resilient Mobility
RESISTRANS – the Centre for Smart and Resilient Mobility aims to build a national platform that will, in the long term, connect research teams with technology companies and the needs of public administration. This six-year CTU project will focus, among other things, on the prevention and prediction of crisis situations. An important part of the project is an emphasis on data-driven decision-making. One of the planned outcomes is the creation and development of a digital transport model that can be used for planning and crisis management at the level of the state, regions, and municipalities.
“We want to connect universities, technology leaders, and public administration. Only through cooperation between top-level research and representatives of municipalities who articulate real needs in the public space can we improve the environment in which we live,” explains the project’s coordinator, Professor Ondřej Přibyl from the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Faculty of Transportation Sciences, CTU. For him and his team, technological development itself is not the ultimate goal. Rather, it is a means of creating intelligently managed and sustainable mobility for citizens. “We do not work with technologies such as autonomous mobility or complex digital twins in isolation. They are essential foundations for a deeper transformation of the entire sector,” he explains.
Innovation in the Production and Use of Semiconductors
In the Semiconductors4All project, coordinated by BUT in Brno, CTU participates as a partner responsible for selected parts of the project in cooperation with companies in the semiconductor and high-tech equipment sectors. The project is based on research that addresses key segments of the semiconductor value chain in the Czech Republic. These include radiation detectors used in healthcare, power semiconductors used in air conditioners, refrigerators, or trams, and integrated devices with embedded intelligence.
Teams from several CTU faculties (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) will focus specifically on advanced diagnostic methods for semiconductors. Thanks to cooperation between the university and industrial partners, prototypes and processes will be developed that can be applied immediately in practice. This will help fulfil key priorities of the National Semiconductor Strategy: transferring scientific knowledge into practice, strengthening the competitiveness of the domestic semiconductor industry, and ensuring knowledge and technological self-sufficiency for the Czech Republic.
Project Consortia
Participants in the NCAI project:
Czech Technical University in Prague (coordinator), Brno University of Technology, Palacký University Olomouc, Charles University, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, prg.ai, SpeechTech s.r.o., AgentFly Technologies s.r.o., VALEO AUTOKLIMATIZACE k.s., Eyedea Recognition s.r.o., Siemens s.r.o., TOS VARNSDORF a.s., Powertica Commodities AG (branch), Škoda Auto a.s., Blindspot Solutions s.r.o., Yunex s.r.o., Avast Software s.r.o., Beckman Coulter Czech Republic s.r.o., MAMA AI Coolma s.r.o., Phonexia s.r.o., AIRS s.r.o., Meopta s.r.o., TGS nástroje-stroje-technologické služby spol. s r.o., B E M A T E C H s.r.o., CAMEA spol. s r.o., Bulovka University Hospital, Digiteq Automotive s.r.o., City of Liberec, Metrostav a.s., ČEPS a.s., Černá kostka (public institution), Teplárna České Budějovice a.s., PromethistAI a.s., EUDAMO a.s., Panasonic Heating & Ventilation Air-Conditioning Czech s.r.o.
Participants in the RESISTRANS project:
Czech Technical University in Prague (coordinator), Transport Research Centre, Ministry of Defence, CAMEA spol. s r.o., University of Pardubice, Brno Public Transport Company, CEDA Maps a.s., Yunex s.r.o., Brno University of Technology, DT – Výhybkárna a strojírna a.s., TTC MARCONI s.r.o., Brněnské komunikace a.s., KORDIS JMK a.s.
Participants in the Semiconductors4All project:
Brno University of Technology (coordinator), Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Charles University, ON Semiconductor Czech Republic s.r.o., University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, IQS nano s.r.o., UJP PRAHA a.s., ADVACAM s.r.o., Masaryk University, Mycroft Mind a.s., Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, CRYTUR spol. s r.o., Czech Technical University in Prague, NenoVision s.r.o., AdvaScope s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brno s.r.o., Meopta s.r.o., ŠKODA ELECTRIC a.s., ELEKTROTECHNIKA a.s.
