Industry Archives - Cyber Valley

Three start-ups join the Cyber Valley Start-up Network

The Cyber Valley Start-up Network is expanding, admitting three new members: Feyer, Ontic Labs, and oneAI. These start-ups are using bold ideas and groundbreaking technologies to shape the future of AI and robotics in Baden-Württemberg.

Feyer

Feyer is building a European frontier AI lab for automated physical invention. The team develops AI systems designed to explore complex physical design spaces and create new technological solutions, with potential applications across areas such as photonics, precision instrumentation, and quantum technologies.

The company emerged from the research group of Mario Krenn, Professor at the Cluster of Excellence “Machine Learning: New Perspectives for Science” at the University of Tübingen. The founding team consists of Jonathan Klimesch, Sören Arlt, and Mario Krenn and has already reached an exciting milestone: Feyer was selected as one of ten teams for the first stage of SPRIND’s Next Frontier AI Challenge, together with Ontic Labs.

Ontic Labs

Ontic Labs is building a foundation model for physical intelligence, giving machines a working understanding of how the physical world behaves.

The Tübingen-based startup develops physics-aware world models that enable machines and robots to perceive, predict, and act in complex real-world environments. Its approach brings states, actions, and sensor data into a shared representation, allowing physical properties such as contact, forces, and object coherence to emerge from training rather than being manually programmed. The goal: a single world model that can transfer across robots, embodiments, tasks, and environments.

Founded by Omid Taheri, Mikel Zhobro, Georg Martius, Wieland Brendel, and Gerard Pons-Moll, Ontic Labs brings together expertise from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the University of Tübingen, the Tübingen AI Center, and the ELLIS Institute Tübingen. The team was also selected as one of ten teams in SPRIND’s Next Frontier AI Challenge.

SPRIND’s Next Frontier AI Challenge

The two start-ups from Tübingen are among just ten teams across Europe that have been selected and will receive €3 million to develop technologies beyond today’s AI models. Of the three selected teams from Germany, two originate from the Cyber Valley ecosystem in Baden-Württemberg as spin-outs from several of Cyber Valley’s academic partners, including the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen AI Center, and the University of Tübingen. Their success highlights the growing momentum with which AI research is being translated into innovative companies and how excellent AI research from Baden-Württemberg is playing a key role in the European race for frontier AI models.

oneAI

As AI adoption accelerates across organizations, questions around governance, security, compliance, and control are becoming increasingly important. oneAI is addressing exactly this challenge: enabling companies and public organizations to use AI securely, transparently, and in compliance with regulatory requirements.

The start-up is a spin-out from relyon AG, already part of the Cyber Valley Corporate Network, demonstrating Baden-Württemberg’s powerful research-to-innovation pipeline. Mirko Tochtermann, Founder & CTO of oneAI, shared his perspective on secure AI adoption and governance at one of our latest Cyber Valley IMPULSE events.

The research-to-market journeys of these start-ups highlight how transferring academic expertise into application leads to tangible impact, powering industry and driving Europe’s sustainable future. Cyber Valley is delighted to welcome these three start-ups to its community!

The Cyber Valley Start-up Network

The Cyber Valley Start-up Network brings together more than 100 innovative AI and robotics start-ups across Baden-Württemberg, forming a strong and growing entrepreneurial community within one of Europe’s leading AI and robotics ecosystems. The network spans a broad range of applications and industries, from foundational AI technologies to applied and industry-specific solutions. Connected through their close ties to Cyber Valley, members benefit from access to world-class research, industry partners, investors, and public stakeholders, jointly strengthening the region’s AI and robotics ecosystem.

September 3, 2026

Another milestone for AI from the Stuttgart region

The future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking an important step forward in the heart of Baden-Württemberg: the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) is joining the ‘KI-D@ARENA2036-X” program as a new partner, contributing its expertise and computing capacity.

The program is jointly driven by ARENA2036, Cyber Valley GmbH, DeepScenario, waveye, and the Technical Information and Communication Services of the University of Stuttgart (TIK).

With HLRS joining the initiative, the program gains an important new partner. This collaboration provides access to the infrastructure project HammerHAI. Starting in mid-year, extensive AI computing resources will be available across the entire development chain—from smaller systems directly integrated into machines or devices to powerful high-performance computing systems. This will make it possible to train and deploy very large and complex AI models.

Infrastructure designed to accelerate AI development

As part of the initiative, the partners are building an open IT and data infrastructure, including access to a data space for the sovereign exchange of data. The goal is to provide companies with easy access to powerful resources for AI applications—from the initial idea to practical deployment within companies. At the center of this effort is the networking of AI systems and data. Companies will be able to use the provided infrastructure without having to build large technical systems themselves. Access will be offered at competitive costs. Start-ups as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will particularly benefit, strengthening their innovative capacity and competitiveness.

This will create a scalable, transparent, and collaboratively designed system in Baden-Württemberg. Instead of a black-box approach, the project deliberately focuses on an open infrastructure.

This infrastructure is built on three key components:

Integrating own hardware

Companies can integrate their own computing hardware, allowing them to flexibly expand available computing capacity and address individual requirements.

Shared data space

A scalable, collaborative data space with marketplaces enables different organizations to work together on datasets, AI models, and concrete use cases.

High-performance computing with HammerHAI

Powerful high-performance computing resources enable the training and deployment of particularly large AI models.

A program that accelerates companies

Participating companies in the ‘KI-D@ARENA2036-X’ program benefit from practical access to powerful AI infrastructure and a strong innovation network.

The program offers, among other things:

the opportunity to test and implement new ideas and proof-of-concepts without high upfront investments
access to powerful high-performance IT without having to operate their own data center
professional exchange with other AI developers facing similar technological challenges
a real-world testing environment at ARENA2036 that brings together requirements from different industries

This means the program not only supports companies in their projects—it actively accelerates the development and implementation of new AI applications.

Voices from the project team

Prof. Dr. Peter Middendorf, Rector of the University of Stuttgart:

“The IT and data infrastructure of ‘KI-D@ARENA2036-X’ is another important building block in our innovation ecosystem. The University of Stuttgart contributes to the success of this project through its Technical Information and Communication Services and as a partner of ARENA2036. I am therefore particularly pleased that the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) is now joining as another strong partner. With its powerful computing infrastructure, HLRS will support companies and start-ups in testing and optimizing state-of-the-art AI applications.”

Dr. Alexander Lahl, Regional Director of the Verband Region Stuttgart:

“Together with the HammerHAI infrastructure project, an important nucleus for AI development is emerging in the region. Start-ups and especially small and medium-sized enterprises will benefit greatly from this initiative. Through our support, we are significantly strengthening the Stuttgart Region as a location for AI applications and data infrastructures. At the same time, this project highlights the importance of collaboration across research, industry, and regional partners.”

Michael Kaiser, Managing Director of Wirtschaftsförderung Region Stuttgart GmbH (WRS):

“The collaboration between ‘KI-D@ARENA2036-X’ and HLRS and its European AI Factory HammerHAI is another important building block for the AI ecosystem of the Stuttgart Region. It enables companies to train and use very large AI models using efficient high-performance computers—without having to operate their own data center. This opens up new opportunities in AI development and application, especially for small and medium-sized companies.”

Angelina Jukic, Program Manager at Cyber Valley GmbH:

“Our goal within the KI-D@ARENA2036-X program is to create a highly connected ecosystem that brings together research, start-ups, and industry. This will make the development and training of AI models more efficient. HammerHAI is one of Germany’s leading AI computing infrastructures and works together with ARENA2036 on forward-looking solutions.”

Project status and outlook

Following the successful establishment of the basic infrastructure during the first year of the project, the program will enable operational access to the available computing and data resources in 2026.

About the KI-D@ARENA2036-X program

The KI-D@ARENA2036-X program is jointly implemented by ARENA2036, Cyber Valley GmbH, DeepScenario, waveye, and the Technical Information and Communication Services (TIK) of the University of Stuttgart. The goal is to build a collaborative infrastructure that accelerates AI innovation in Baden-Württemberg while ensuring security, transparency, and long-term economic sustainability.

The program is funded by the Verband Region Stuttgart within the Co-Financing Program for Artificial Intelligence from 2024 to 2027 with a total of €685,000.

Presscontact:

Silke Dutz

Public Outreach Manager

Email: silke.dutz@cyber-valley.de

March 19, 2026

2016: The foundation of an AI ecosystem

In 2016, important actors from science, industry, and politics founded the Cyber Valley Consortium, which became the first Innovation Campus in Baden-Württemberg. Ten years on in 2026, we’re revisiting the most important milestones from the last decade. Each month, we’ll focus on a particular year since Cyber Valley’s beginning.

This month, we’re returning to 2016 to look back at Cyber Valley’s foundation. Back then, the AI boom and the wholesale use of LLMs were still some years away. Actors from science, industry, and politics in Baden-Württemberg nevertheless knew that this technology would play an essential role in the state’s future.

Baden-Württemberg was already in an unrivalled position to create AI for the benefit of future society since it is home to several top AI research institutions: the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the University of Stuttgart, the University of Tübingen, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The next step was to apply their cutting-edge research to solving real-world problems.

This was where Cyber Valley came in. In 2016, the Cyber Valley Consortium was founded with the mission of advocating for the research, development, application, and acceptance of AI and modern robotics. Cyber Valley was to unite excellent research with practical application to build the AI of tomorrow in Baden-Württemberg.

At its founding, Cyber Valley Consortium consisted of the Max Planck Society (which includes the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, MPI-IS), the state of Baden-Württemberg, and the Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen, alongside partners from industry: Amazon, BMW, Bosch, IAV, Mercedes-Benz Group, Porsche AG, and ZF Friedrichshafen. Other research institutions joined later, including Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (in 2019), KIT, and ELLIS Institute Tübingen (both 2024).

Winfried Kretschmann, Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Theresia Bauer, who was then Minister of Science, Research and Art in Baden-Württemberg, and Martin Stratmann, who was then President of the Max Planck Society, launched the consortium on December 15, 2016, in Stuttgart’s Neues Schloss along with other participants from the consortium, including Bernhard Schölkopf(MPI-IS), Frank Allgöwer (University of Stuttgart) and Bernd Engler (University of Tübingen). The result was one of the largest research–industry partnerships for AI and modern robotics in Europe.

Theresia Bauer, Managing Director of the Baden-Württemberg-Stiftung, and Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Science, Research and Art at the time of Cyber Valley’s founding:

“At the time, I was thrilled by the great opportunity to bundle the excellent research landscape in the fields of AI and computer science in a condensed innovation ecosystem and make it more attractive for top international talent. When Cyber Valley was founded, I hoped that this concentration of cutting-edge research, the promotion of young talent, and responsible innovation would have what it takes to develop great appeal and grow rapidly. Today, you can see that we have succeeded in developing such a positive dynamic, which has a far-reaching impact on science, business, and the entire location.”

Bernhard Schölkopf, Scientific Director of the ELLIS Institute Tübingen and Director of Empirical Inference at MPI-IS:

“We started Cyber Valley with the belief that AI has the potential to change the world, and with the goal to do so in a positive way. This is now commonplace, but launching in 2016 gave us a head start and with a number of exciting start-ups, outstanding research institutions, and initiatives such as ELLIS and MP-AIX, we now have one of the most vibrant AI ecosystems in Europe.”

Michael Black, Director of Perceiving Systems at MPI-IS:

“The goal of Cyber Valley has always been to give Germany the chance to build a new high-growth economy around AI. In 2016, AI was not in the headlines, but we believed that we had the raw materials needed to succeed. Through the partnership of government, academia, and industry, we grew the AI faculty, attracted top researchers, built a top graduate program, trained hundreds of AI scientists, attracted investment, and helped launch a network of start-ups. These start-ups were always the goal and they hold the promise of a new Germany economy.”

Peter Middendorf, Rector of the University of Stuttgart:

“From the very beginning, the University of Stuttgart pursued the goal of pooling expertise in artificial intelligence and particularly in robotics, within and for the Stuttgart region. Together with the University of Tübingen, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, and other partners, we have played a decisive role in shaping and advancing Cyber Valley. This strong network has given rise to excellent research, new professorships, and innovative projects, which we continue to actively drive forward – soon also in the new Cyber Valley building here in Stuttgart.”

Philipp Hennig, Director of Tübingen AI Center, University of Tübingen:

“The world was a different place ten years ago, but even then it was clear that Europe, Germany, and Baden-Württemberg had to increase their efforts to stay relevant for AI. A decade later, I’m glad that we got the political mandate to get started then. The urgency of our tasks has only grown since then; but so have our opportunities.”

Bernhard Beckert, Dean of the KIT Department of Informatics:

“When Cyber Valley was founded in 2016, we saw its potential to increase the visibility of AI research in Baden-Württemberg and to build a regional network that connects talent and accelerates scientific progress. Today, more than ever, this collaborative approach remains essential for supporting responsible AI development and for strengthening the region’s position within an increasingly complex international environment.”

Matthias Tröndle, Head of the Scientific Coordination Office, MPI-IS:

“When we founded Cyber Valley in 2016, we envisioned creating a bold innovation ecosystem focused on artificial intelligence at a time when its transformative impact was not yet widely recognized. By bringing together universities, non-university research institutions, industry, start-ups, foundations, and government in an unprecedented partnership, we broke new ground. The outstanding success of Cyber Valley has since made it a blueprint for subsequent innovation campuses.”

To celebrate Cyber Valley’s ten-year anniversary, we’ll be sharing a variety of content across our website and social media channels reflecting on milestones from the last decade. Stay tuned for the next instalments!

January 29, 2026