NVIDIA and Bulgaria’s INSAIT unveiled a new tool for testing AI models, while Google increased its support to over 7 million dollars

The Bulgarian Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Technologies (INSAIT) at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” has unveiled a new platform for evaluating the ability of artificial intelligence to control robots while performing complex tasks. The platform, called LADDER, was developed in collaboration with the technology company NVIDIA and allows researchers to investigate the extent to which modern AI models can plan and execute sequential actions in realistic robotic scenarios. Almost simultaneously with its unveiling, the institute announced a new $1 million grant from Google, intended to expand its research activities, BalkanEngineer.com learned from official statements by INSAIT.

The LADDER platform challenges artificial intelligence with tasks that require the coordination of several sequential actions, such as clearing a cluttered table. Such operations involve object recognition, action planning, and adapting to changes in the surrounding environment. Initial tests show that even leading AI models manage to complete only about one-third of the most complex tasks, which involve between eight and ten sequential actions. Specialized robotics models achieve even lower results. The developers have made the platform, the model rankings, the test videos, and the source code publicly available, allowing the results to be tracked and compared as new technologies emerge.

A few days before the LADDER presentation, INSAIT announced that Google is providing an additional 1 million dollars in support, bringing the total publicly announced funding from the company to the Bulgarian institute to over 7 million dollars. The donation includes direct funding and Google Cloud credits, which will provide additional access to computing infrastructure for training and developing artificial intelligence models. Priority areas include robotics, artificial intelligence for scientific and mathematical research, Earth observation, and technological sovereignty.

Google has been one of INSAIT’s technology partners since its founding in 2022, with the collaboration covering research in computer vision, language models, and autonomous AI systems. The new LADDER platform is a separate project developed with NVIDIA, but together with the additional funding from Google, it demonstrates the expansion of the institute’s research activities in the field of intelligent systems and robotics.

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