Technology Ireland Industry Award for UCD-developed audio quality tools

2 December 2025

^{Brendan Kiely, Chair of Technology Ireland; Dave Feenan, Network Manager at Technology Ireland ICT Skillnet; Dr Andrew Hines, UCD Insight Centre for Data Analytics; Jan Skoglund, Software Engineer at  Google; and Una Fitzpatrick, Director of Technology Ireland}

UCD’s (opens in a new window)Dr Andrew Hines has won a prestigious tech prize for the development of audio quality testing technology used by Google.

Based in the UCD Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Dr Hines picked up the Technology Ireland Industry Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement of the Year.

His project, titled “Sound Check: Audio Quality Technologies for Entertainment, Communication, and Accessibility”, encompasses a suite of audio quality testing tools.

Dr Hines’ team carries out subjective studies with people, asking them to rate audio samples of different qualities. This data is then used to train AI models to understand and evaluate audio in the same way.

In 2012, the researchers began their collaboration with Google, which now uses the technology to maintain audio quality across YouTube. One of Dr Hines’ tools, ViSQOL, now processes the top 30,000 YouTube videos each day to ensure their audio quality meets the required standards.

The tech is also used to compress and transmit audio files so they sound clear and take up less space on Google Meet, as well as in the design of Pixel phones.

“This award acknowledges the effort behind Insight and UCD’s partnership with Google,” said Dr Hines. 

“It reinforces our commitment to research that bridges the gap between high-impact academic papers and robust, real-world audio technology that improves the user experience on streaming and communication platforms used by millions globally.”

As well as Google, the tools have been adopted by other major tech companies, including Meta, Apple, Microsoft and Sony.

Dr Hines’ Sound Check project was also a runner-up in the UCD Impact Case Study Competition 2024.

By: Rebecca Hastings, Digital Journalist, UCD University Relations

To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie