Artificial Intelligence Apr 23, 2020

Bavaria invests in the development of artificial intelligence (AI)

Almost everyone is aware of at least one development that has something to do with artificial intelligence, or AI for short: for example in smartphones or social media. AI is increasingly used as a cross-industry innovation in almost all industries in the business world too. Bavaria is funding the development of artificial intelligence on a large scale in order to also be able to offer the ideal framework conditions in Bavaria in the future.

The Bavarian state government decided as early as 2018 to invest 280 million euros in AI research in the following years. And that’s in addition to existing initiatives such as Bayern Digital II, a strategic plan initially until 2022. The goal: To take Bavaria right to the top in this area of digitisation. Artificial intelligence is a key sector of the future, Bavaria's Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger said in an announcement. Therefore, investment is not only being made in funding but 95 new government agencies are also being created in this area at the same time. The cabinet also decided to establish a Bavarian AI agency. An AI council consisting of leading experts is to be created within the agency that will help develop international appeal beyond the national borders. Resulting in Bavaria positioning itself at the forefront of international competition in the field of AI.

Funds for research are pushing the development of artificial intelligence in Bavaria

 

The universities and universities of applied sciences in Erlangen, Würzburg, Augsburg, Bayreuth, Ingolstadt and Weiden are particularly benefiting from new professor positions. In conjunction with the existing Bavaria-wide competence network of AI start-ups in Bayern, as well as institutions such as the AI Research Center in Munich, which was created in 2019 out of a collaboration between IBM and fortiss, Bavaria has taken a huge step towards the future..

The Fraunhofer Institute was also brought on board: not only was a new Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems opened at the Munich location but work is already underway to build its own research facility at the Garching University and Research Centre in order to specifically recruit researchers for areas of artificial intelligence for Bavaria. The construction is being funded with 20 million euros each by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Federal Government. A link to the Technical University of Munich building (TUM) is also in preparation. In addition, Bavaria has the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security, which has also been located in Garching since the end of 2019 and is concerned with the security of the Internet of Things, among other things.

These researchers can then come together in Nuremberg at the ADA Lovelace Center for Analytics, Data and Applications. It was opened in December 2019. Not only does it have a world of experience for AI but also co-working spaces, where employees from different companies and institutions can network and exchange information. The ADA Lovelace Center, which has partnerships with several universities and Fraunhofer Institutes, will be funded by Bavaria until 2023. This kind of investment in research is necessary because AI is about more than just science, but also about ethical, social and legal issues.

Bavaria must keep up in the competition between individual countries, such as Japan, China and the USA, to take on the pioneering role in the field of artificial intelligence. As a result, cooperation across industry boundaries has been the clear focus since the state-funded initiatives began. Further examples of cross-industry innovation are technologies such as the Internet of Things, IT security or virtual and augmented reality, which are also used across industries at corporations based in Bavaria, such as Apple, IBM, Microsoft or Siemens. AI will not become any less important over the next few years, quite the contrary, as Celonis and other up-and-coming AI start-ups show. Bavaria is well prepared for this with the Future Initiative for Artificial Intelligence.