Research & development Aug 16, 2016

Digitalisation ahead – big data in Bavaria

The Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 are the hot topics that dominate the world of business. Inextricably linked to them is the topic of big data & analytics with regard to managing and using these new technologies' huge amounts of data. All in all, it is a topic with untapped potential that is also a top priority in the State of Bavaria.

The advantages big data offers are obvious: Analysing the data flows delivers new findings with regard to the entire value chain, which in turn can be leveraged to increase efficiency, reduce costs and tap new markets. Many companies are aware of the benefits they can derive from analysing these data flows. However, some companies still need to find the appropriate solutions for managing the data correctly. Together with technology companies based in Bavaria, the State wants to address this challenge.

 

Opportunities for all user industries

Big data opens up opportunities across all industries: from automotive and insurance to the chemical and pharmaceutical sector. Companies from all user industries are based in Bavaria – an enormous potential for the location that the European Commission has chosen to be Europe's most important IT hub. The State also plays a prominent role when it comes to big data technologies and applications. Furthermore, it is not just Bavaria alone who is investing in this potential, but also the companies based here offering big data solutions. 

This includes global players such as IBM, who decided to open its global headquarters for Watson IoT in Munich last year. But it is also young entrepreneurs who capture the market with their innovative ideas and boost the big data scene of Bavaria. One of them is the Celonis start-up, which was founded five years ago. Today it employs 60 persons and caters to customers such as Siemens, RWE, Bayer and Edeka. Also sector-specific solutions have found their niche in Bavaria. For example the green spin GmbH from Würzburg, a start-up which offers data analyses tailored to the agricultural sector. Thanks to the support of different start-up programmes, the young company has already won several awards for its efforts.

 

University research on big data

In addition to the companies based here, it is also thanks to the universities located in Bavaria, that the industry is offered new solutions and new talents gets trained. Apart from the universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg or Würzburg, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich stands out from the crowd: As of the coming winter semester, students can enrol for the Master Programme “Data Science”. In Germany, this is the first study programme which combines the disciplines of statistics and information technology, making students familiar with the challenges of big data. 

The Technical University of Munich also has a leading role when it comes to linking all the different research institutions and companies in Bavaria. In a sub-project of the Internet centre of excellence in Eastern Bavaria, the University of Passau investigates the topic of Big and Open Data Analytics for SME (BODA). In cooperation with partners from business and application partners, new cloud services for using open data in big data processes will be created here.

This is how Bavaria's universities ensure the training of the next generation of highly-educated staff while also connecting them and their ideas to the users. This represents a mutual give and take, which will make the topic of big data in Bavaria to one of the key drivers of digital transformation in future as well.