Experts from our faculty are part of the international project InnovAIte Slovakia: Illuminating Pathways for AI-Driven Breakthroughs, which aims to build an innovation ecosystem in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and push the boundaries of its use in practice. The project is implemented by a consortium of major technology companies, universities and research institutions from Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany, which also includes the Slovak University of Technology with a 13-member research team from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Slovak Technical University.
The project manager for the Faculty of Civil Engineering is Associate Professor Tomáš Funtík from the Department of Building Technology, SvF STU, who also covers the area of Building Information Modeling (BIM). The main researchers are also Professor Michal Krajčík from the Department of Building Technical Equipment, SvF STU, responsible for the area of energy efficiency of buildings, and Associate Professor Ján Erdélyi from the Department of Geodesy, SvF STU, responsible for the area of digitalization of existing buildings.
A team of 13 experts from our faculty is working on designing optimizations in buildings using AI. The key step is to precisely target the spaces using laser scanning and other methods and create an appropriate structure of information about the building, which will include building structures and systems. “We will map consumption points onto this structure via various sensors and meters. Subsequently, using the acquired data sets, AI will look for optimizations for higher efficiency in buildings and industrial facilities,” explains Associate Professor Tomáš Funtík.
The main tasks of the project include the development of AI algorithms for the aforementioned increase in the energy efficiency of buildings, but also strengthening traffic safety through video analysis, automation of software development, digital transformation of the insurance sector and validation of functional prototypes. Another area is the support of AI education, talent development and startup acceleration. The goal is to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence applications across various industries and bring innovations that will support economic growth, increase sustainability and improve the quality of life. AI solutions should not only be technologically advanced, but also ethical, environmentally sustainable and socially beneficial.
The consortium of InnovAIte Slovakia project researchers is led by Gratex International. In addition to the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, the consortium includes: Asseco Central Europe, CANEX, Optima Ideas, Vysoká škola báňská - Technical University of Ostrava, Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH, Comenius University in Bratislava, Alexander Dubček University of Trenčín in Trenčín, Center for Scientific and Technical Information of the Slovak Republic and the Trenčín self-governing region.
The project is implemented within the framework of the Transformation and Innovation Consortiums call, financed from the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic and runs from April 2025 to September 2027 under project no. 09I02-03-V01-00029.
