The project ‘DeKIS – Decentralised AI-supported Search and Semantic Web Indexing’ investigates whether the Open Web Index (OWI) can form the basis for a European AI-based search engine and web data analysis. DeKIS is one of only four projects funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy through the ‘Bayern Innovativ’ initiative.
A web index is the heart of every web search engine, acting like a giant library catalogue that makes websites, documents, images and videos accessible. Unlike the indexes operated by private companies such as Google or Bing, which restrict access to their collected index data, the Open Web Index (OWI) aims to make this data available as a public resource. This means that companies, developers, researchers and other interested parties can access the OWI and process the structured data for their own applications or analyses, for example to build their own search engines or develop AI models.
The aim of the DeKIS project is to validate whether OWI can form the basis for a European, AI-based search engine and web data analysis. The focus is on validating algorithms that enable scalable, semantic web indexing using vector embeddings and decentralised AI-supported search. Such embeddings form the core of AI-based search by compressing information while preserving or improving semantics, thereby requiring less computing power.
‘Successful validation opens the way for a variety of application scenarios, from search and combating disinformation to improved maps in smartphones,’ says project manager Dr Jelena Mitrovic.
The DeKIS project is based at the Chair of Data Science led by Professor Dr. Michael Granitzer and is being funded for 18 months with just under €300,000 as part of the ‘Bayern Innovativ’ initiative. The funding body is the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy.
This text was machine-translated from German.
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Pictured: Dr Jelena Mitrović and Mehdi Ben Amor from the Chair of Data Science; photo: University of Passau
| Principal Investigator(s) at the University | Prof. Dr. Jelena Mitrović (Lehrstuhl für Data Science) |
|---|---|
| Project period | 01.10.2025 - 31.03.2027 |
| Source of funding |
BayStMWi - Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft, Landesentwicklung und Energie
|
| Themenfelder | Informatik, Angewandte Informatik |
