Established in 1899 by Emperor Franz Joseph I, Brno University of Technology (BUT) is the city's oldest university. Today it offers high-quality studies in engineering, scientific, economic and artistic fields. With its 20 thousand students and 8 faculties, BUT is the nation's largest technical university. Focusing on science and research, the University has five of its own research centres: ADMAS (Advanced Materials, Structures and Technologies), NETME (New Technologies for Mechanical Engineering), CVVOZE (Centre for Researchand Utilization of Renewable Energy), SIX (Centre for Sensor, Information and Communication Systems and CMV (Materials Research Centre). It is engaged in two centres of excellence: CEITEC (Central European Institute of Technology) and IT4Innovations National Supercomputer Centre. In recent years, BUT has been among the world's best universities according to international rankings QS World University Ranking and THE World University Ranking. The university focuses on cooperation with both EU and non-EU partners, has over 600 partnership agreements. BUT and JIC (the South-Moravian Innovation Center, joint venture with other Brno Universities) have been the backbone of regional transformation from heavy industry and agriculture to 21st century technologies. BUT actively participates in the definition of regional and national innovation strategies. BUT took an active part in the formulation of National Artificial Intelligence Strategy of the Czech Republic, and contributes to the Czech Republic position in the planning of Digital Europe programme.

Relevance to AI

The BUT team from the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) works on many aspects of Artificial Intelligence including information extraction from speech, concept and entity recognition, audio and video analysis, advanced machine learning, embedded intelligence, big data processing, and cyber-physical systems. So far BUT teams participated in 21 FP7 projects, and have taken part in 23 Horizon 2020 ones. This makes BUT teams one of the most successful groups in the Central European region with the focus on the mentioned areas. The FIT BUT team has a long research track record in performing high-impact research and development. It has been funded by US Government (IARPA and DARPA programs), and local research agencies (Czech Ministries of Education, Trade and Commerce, Defense and Interior, Technological Agency of the Czech Republic)  – see the full list of our projects: https://www.fit.vut.cz/research/projects/