Artificial Intelligence Scholarships Available!

The Malta Digital Innovation Authority (MDIA) have allocated €100,000 toward scholarships for post-graduate students studying Artificial Intelligence at Masters' or PhD level. Students that pursue the technology stream of the M.Sc. in Digital Games or wish to pursue a PhD in Game AI are eligible to apply for these scholarship funds.

Those interested in pursuing this opportunity can find more information on the dedicated website. Completed application forms and relevant attachments must reach the MDIA via email by Friday 16 July 2021 by not later than 13:00.

AI Courses Malta

The Institute of Digital Games finds itself on the intersection of two of Malta's fundamental and ambitious national strategies: the AI Strategy and the Videogames and eSports Strategy. Therefore, AI is an increasingly interesting direction of study to pursue at the University of Malta, either through the Department of Artificial Intelligence, or for those interested in game AI at a postgraduate level, with the Institute of Digital Games.

Why apply for the AI Scholarship in Malta?

In addition to the abovementioned alignment of the national strategies, the Institute of Digital Games is one of the leading research institutes on game artificial intelligence in the world. The game artificial intelligence section of the post-graduate degree is led by Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis, who has co-authored the first textbook on Game AI and is ranked in the top 2% of computer science researchers active in the field worldwide.

While cutting edge and impactful research is at the core of the Institute's programme, we care deeply about educating the next generation of innovators and game-changers. Our students routinely work along senior academics like Prof. Yannakakis to develop innovative artificial intelligence tools for games, evidenced by their publication of research in significant journals such as IEEE Transactions on Games. Furthermore, our alumni go on to found disrupting AI technology start-ups with the full involvement and support of the faculty.

Video Demo of SuSketch Tool by M.Sc. student Panagiotis Migkotzidis

SuSketch is a design tool for first-person shooter levels, which leverages machine learning to provide the designer with predictions of the gameplay for two competing players of specific classes. The interface allows the designer to work side-by-side with an artificially intelligent creator and to receive varied typesof feedback such as path information, predicted balance between players in a complete playthrough, or a predicted heatmap of thelocations of player deaths. The system also proactively designsalternatives to the level and class pairing, and presents them to the designer as suggestions that improve the predicted balance of thegame. The tool offers a new way of integrating machine learninginto mixed-initiative co-creation tools, as a surrogate of human play trained on a large corpus of artificial playtraces.

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