Cyber Valley - Artificial Intelligence finds a home

Computers work at lightning speed and store more knowledge than any brain can. But when it comes to solving a task for which they are not specifically programmed, they soon reach their limits. Thus, even a beetle can find its bearings better in an unknown environment than a robot can.

Computers, however, are catching up. Since machines have been able to learn and thus have developed artificial intelligence, there have been systems that can reliably analyze images or speech and capture useful information for science and industry from large quantities of data.

And intelligent systems will be important in more and more areas of life: they could drive us as autonomous cars, help us out in the home on a daily basis; carry out emergency operations which are too dangerous for human, or diagnose and fight diseases in medicine as tiny robots. It's not surprising that both basic research and industry around the world are working to boost the intelligence of machines and that artificial intelligence is considered as one of the key technologies for the 21st century.

There are several locations and institutions in Germany – particularly in Baden-Württemberg – where the principles and applications of intelligent systems are already being researched on an international scale. Some of these activities are now being concentrated in Cyber Valley in the Stuttgart-Tübingen area. Funded by the Land of Baden-Württemberg, this research network comprises the Tübingen and Stuttgart sites of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the University of Tübingen and the University of Stuttgart together with seven industry partners: Amazon, the BMW Group, IAV GmbH, Daimler AG, Porsche AG, Robert Bosch GmbH and ZF Friedrichshafen AG. These key partners, especially the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, will be financing Cyber Valley in the next five years with a figure in the double digit million euros range.

The aim of the cluster is to advance the research and development of intelligent systems, make this even more visible at an international level and in this way to attract the best minds in the area of artificial intelligence to Germany and the region. The research network also aims to support the training of junior scientists in this area. In addition, the partners intend to use the new model of cooperation between science and industry to create a stimulating environment for successful company startups in the area of artificial intelligence.