July 21 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria signed a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation with Amazon Web Services (AWS), part of US technology group Amazon, the innovation and growth ministry said on Thursday.
The MoU will encourage cooperation between the government and AWS in innovations and economic development through digital skills training, support for local cloud-based businesses and assistance to the government in digital transformation and cyber security, the ministry said in a press release.
This partnership will help upgrade employees' digital skills and advance the digital transformation in the private sector and the public administration, boosting economic development and transparency in the governance, thus raising efficiency, innovations minister Daniel Lorer was quoted as saying.
Furthermore, Amazon will provide education institutions with access to its AWS Educate and AWS Academy programmes and will back local startups with AWS credits, training and support.
In April, AWS said it will invest $3.75 million (3.68 million euro) in Bulgaria's newly-launched Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology, or INSAIT. Bulgaria attracted a combined investment of over 12 million levs ($6.7 million/6.1 million euro) from US technology giants Google, DeepMind and AWS in INSAIT, complementing 170 million levs of state financing over the next ten years. Bulgarian web hosting company SiteGround will also inject 12 million levs in INSAIT, with an additional 1.7 million levs to be provided by a number of local technology entrepreneurs.
INSAIT was established in partnership with Swiss technology universities ETH Zurich and EPFL and will operate as a special unit of Sofia University. It will be managed and advised by scientists from Bulgaria, the US, Israel and Switzerland.
(1 euro = 1.01892 dollars)