The collaboration agreement between FCT and Google will result in the availability of US$ 2 million in Google Cloud platform credits over a two-year period for R&D projects in the area of artificial intelligence.
In this first edition, the call had as preferred areas: ethics in artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
FCT has published the preliminary results of Computing Projects Calls Advanced: Artificial Intelligence in the Cloud 2022. Eleven projects have been approved for access to Google Cloud platform credits, worth a total of 799,364 USD (US dollars), earmarked for this year. The resources are the result of a collaboration agreement between FCT and Google to support Artificial Intelligence research in Portugal.
The list of projects recommended for access to computing resources is available on the page dedicated to the competition, as well as the summary of results.
The 1st edition of the competition will give 11 advanced computing projects access to Google Cloud platform credits for 12 months. The projects are distributed as follows, by the preferred areas of the competition:
- 36% for natural language processing
- 18% for ethics in artificial intelligence.
In terms of scientific domain the distribution is as follows:
- 90% are in exact sciences and engineering
- 10% in life and health sciences.
All researchers leading the funded projects work in Portuguese territory, mostly men, representing 82% of the total, and geographically 55% of the projects are associated with institutions in the Lisbon region, 27% in the north and 9% in the south and islands.
The application submission period ran from March 30 to May 30 of this year. Applications were evaluated by an external evaluation panel, according to the preferred scientific areas of the call. The lists, ordered by type of access, were approved at an evaluation panel meeting. The success rate of the call, considering the applications of both types, was 100%.
This collaboration with Google complements the existing support provided by FCT under the RNCA - National Network for Advanced Computing, which provides high performance computing resources through its network of operational and visualization centers. Next year it is intended to launch the second edition of this call for projects in artificial intelligence in the cloud and extend the initiative to more national users.
