AIT (Austrian Institute of Technology)
| Registered office | Austria - Vienna |
|---|---|
| Other branches | Seibersdorf (AT), Tulln (AT), Graz (AT), Klagenfurt (AT), Ranshofen (AT), Hall in Tirol (AT), Steyr (AT), Dornbirn (AT) |
| Industries | Research and Development, Scientific Teaching, Services |
| Categories | science, surveillance, research, IT, biometrics, AI, autonomous systems, infrastructure |
| Sources |
AIT –: https://www.ait.ac.at/ AIT –: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/218004 AIT – ZEIT ONLINE: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2017-02/sicherheit-technik-eu-forschung-fraunhofer-gesellschaft/komplettansicht |
| Website | https://www.ait.ac.at/ |
About the company
The Austrian Institute of Technology, headquartered in Vienna, is the successor organisation to the Austrian Study Society for Atomic Energy. On Wikipedia, AIT is described as one of the largest non-university research institutions in Austria, giving the impression that it is a public institution. In its web presence, however, AIT presents itself as a company and in fact it is a limited liability company with several "subsidiaries", only 50.46% are owned by the state. The rest of the shares are held by the "Association for the Promotion of Research and Innovation" of the Federation of Austrian Industries.
Contribution to the EU border regime
The AIT is one of the five research institutes that benefited most extensively from the EU Research Framework Programmes 6, 7 and Horizon2020. According to ZEIT, the total amount AIT received in EU research funding is over 16 million euros. The projects in which AIT was and is involved - often as the leader of the respective consortium - deal on the one hand with renewable energies (e.g. Sim4Blocks) and electromobility (e.g. SMARTBATT, SYRNEMO), on the other hand with cyber security (e.g. SPARKS) and - thematically connected to this - cloud services for "critical infrastructures" (e.g. C2-SENSE, SECCRIT). Other EU research projects led by or involving AIT dealt with the strategic planning of technology development (e.g. ETCETERA, RIF, FESTOS) and also very specifically with border security: The FASTPASS project led by AIT, for example, was intended to contribute to the harmonisation of automated border crossings and thus accelerate transit on the one hand and prevent illegal entries on the other. Under the leadership of Leonardo, AIT was also involved in the SUBITO project, alongside Selex and Idemia, to improve intelligent video surveillance at airports. Until August 2022, Thales and AIT, among others, are involved in the FOLDOUT project, which aims to enable the "penetration" of foliage through the intelligent fusion of sensor data in order to better monitor borders. For the management of this project alone, AIT receives over 1.6 million euros from the EU research budget.
Added: Jan. 11, 2024
Last update: Jan. 28, 2024, 12:03 p.m.