News Category: Press Release

  • Cyber Valley Day 2026

    Cyber Valley Day 2026

    On September 9, more than 850 guests came to Tübingen to celebrate a very special milestone: ten years of the Cyber Valley Innovation Campus. Researchers, start-ups, investors, policymakers, partners from industry and society, as well as many other guests gathered for a day full of inspiring talks, surprising keynotes, a research exhibition, start-up presentations, investor sessions, and networking.

    Cyber Valley Day opened with welcome addresses from leading representatives from politics, science, and our Innovation Campus: Moritz Hardt, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems; Cem Özdemir, Minister President of Baden-Württemberg; Boris Palmer, Lord Mayor of Tübingen; Karla Pollmann, President of the University of Tübingen; Simone Schwanitz, Secretary General of the Max Planck Society; and Florian Mayer, Managing Director of Cyber Valley GmbH, welcomed guests to the anniversary celebration.

    Cem Özdemir_Minister President
    © Christian Borth

    Scientific program at the main stage

    Hosted by Linda Behringer, press officer at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the main stage program brought together voices from across the international AI and innovation landscape.

    A keynote by Manuela Veloso, Herbert A. Simon University Professor Emerita at Carnegie Mellon University, provided one of the early highlights of the day. Throughout the program, the Cyber Valley Voices sessions on the main stage featured leading researchers from across our Innovation Campus, including Bernhard Schölkopf from the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Matthias Bethge from the Tübingen AI Center at the University of Tübingen, Tamim Asfour from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Katherine J. Kuchenbecker from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Steffen Staab from the University of Stuttgart, and Werner Kraus from Fraunhofer IPA.

    In the Auditorium, C. David Remy and Philipp Rothemund from the University of Stuttgart, as well as Chandan Kumar from Fraunhofer IAO, shared insights into their research. The afternoon continued with a keynote by Alex Smola, CEO and co-founder of Boson AI, as well as a talk by Rafael Laguna de la Vera from the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIN-D).

    © Christian Borth

    Surprise keynote speaker

    One of the biggest highlights of the day was our surprise keynote speaker: Yoshua Bengio, one of the pioneers of modern artificial intelligence. He has become one of the most prominent voices discussing the societal implications of AI, discussing questions regarding safety, and he calls for a responsible development of AI. Having Yoshua Bengio join us for our anniversary was very special!

    Cyber Valley Day 10 Year Anniversary
    © Christian Borth

    From excellent scientific ideas to real-world applications and impact

    The panel discussion “Building what’s next: How bold ideas move from research to impact” brought together researchers, founders, and innovation experts to discuss how ambitious ideas can move beyond research and into society and industry. Moderated by Larissa Holzki from Handelsblatt, the discussion featured Saadet Baltaci and Antonia Georgopoulou from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Aline Defranceski from Data Coffee, Maike Kaufman from Polybot, Theodora Preda from Plug and Play, and Katharina Schmidt from apic.ai.

    © Christian Borth

    The Cyber Valley Start-up Voices session offered further perspectives on innovation and entrepreneurship, with contributions from Prashanth Halady of Bosch, Mario Krenn of Feyer, and Jonas Müller of Black Forest Labs.

    Research from our Innovation Campus

    The exhibition with more than 40 exhibitors on the ground floor brought together academic partners, research projects, and organizations from across our Innovation Campus, including the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Haptic Intelligence Department, Max Planck Foundation, the IMPRS-IS, the University of Stuttgart (IntCDC, IRIS, MLIP, KI-SIR), the University of Tübingen (ML Cluster, Tübingen AI Center), Bionic Intelligence Tübingen Stuttgart (BITS), ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, ARENA2036, BWKI, Cyber Valley GmbH and PAB, High Performance Humanoid Technologies Lab (H²T) from KIT, KE:SAI, Oktonex, Polybot, Prior Labs, and more!

    Robot at Cyber Valley Day
    © Christian Borth

    A stage for the next generation of founders

    On the sixth floor, the Start-up Basecamp put entrepreneurship and emerging innovation at the center of the conversation.
    Start-ups and initiatives including Bergsonne Labs, Denkbox, NUVUS, Computomics, Feyer, MaiTY, Istari AI, TextVerstehen, Tanocrix, Data Coffee, Yugen Space, IntegraSkin, MIRA vision, the Startup Center Tübingen, and the Tübingen AI Center presented their work and connected with researchers, investors, and other members of the ecosystem.

    An investor “Ask Me Anything” session also gave researchers and future founders the opportunity to gain practical insights into early-stage investment and entrepreneurship. Representatives from Capnamic, Fly Ventures, AI Fund, and Mätch VC shared their perspectives on what investors look for and what researchers should consider when exploring the path from research to start-up.
    During more than 40 1:1 sessions with investors, researchers and prospective founders had the opportunity to discuss their individual ideas, receive tailored feedback, and explore potential pathways toward funding and venture creation.

    Cyber Valley Day start-ups
    © Christian Borth

    Special announcement

    The final highlight of the day was grubel, which announced its launch during Cyber Valley Day. Founded by Moritz Hardt, Reinhard Heckel, Vedant Nanda and Navid Rekabsaz, grubel is building AI systems specialized to individual legal matters. Its vision: every matter should be able to build its own AI by combining data curation, adaptation, and evaluation to create specialized systems that can deliver high performance while keeping sensitive data under the customer’s control. We’re excited to see this research-driven venture take its next step and look forward to following its journey! 

    © Christian Borth

    Looking ahead

    Ten years ago, a group of visionary partners laid the foundation for Cyber Valley. Today, it has grown into a vibrant ecosystem connecting excellent research, entrepreneurship, industry, and society. Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make this celebration a very memorable day!

  • Another milestone for AI from the Stuttgart region

    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   

  • UTokyo IPC and Cyber Valley launch ‘Valley and Sunrise’

    UTokyo IPC and Cyber Valley launch ‘Valley and Sunrise’

    The Valley and Sunrise program originates from a strategic partnership between Cyber Valley, Europe’s leading center for excellence in AI and modern robotics, and UTokyo IPC, the venture investment arm of the University of Tokyo. It opens up UTokyo IPC’s academic and corporate networks to Cyber Valley start-ups, accelerating their market entry and commercialization in Japan and offering them a competitive advantage in global markets.

    Selected start-ups will receive:

    • Up to €50,000 in financial support for initial market entry.
    • Access to Japanese corporate executives, strategic investors, and regulatory expertise.
    • Customized Proof of Concept (PoC) partnerships with top-tier Japanese enterprises. 
    • Six months of personalized mentorship, networking opportunities, and guidance for successful market integration.

    Applications for Valley and Sunrise will be open from November 5 until December 5, 2025, with selected start-ups beginning the program in spring 2026. Up to two start-ups from the Cyber Valley Start-up Network will participate in the program. 

    Florian Mayer, Managing Director, Cyber Valley GmbH:

    ‘The Valley and Sunrise program offers German start-ups a unique opportunity to gain insights and connections in one of the world’s most advanced economies. The program encourages cross-border innovation between Germany and Japan, supporting deep-tech start-ups from the Cyber Valley ecosystem in Baden-Württemberg to thrive on a global scale.’

    Angelina Jukic, Program Manager, Cyber Valley GmbH:

    ‘This initiative has come to life through our close collaboration with UTokyo IPC. The Valley and Sunrise program turns our shared vision into reality – connecting German AI and robotics start-ups with Japan’s leading investors, corporates, and researchers, and strengthening collaboration between our two innovation ecosystems.’

    Hideki Nagasaka, Partner & Director, 1stRound, UTokyo IPC:

    ‘Through our collaboration with Cyber Valley, we are building a truly global platform, empowering German start-ups not only to succeed in the Japanese market but also to thrive internationally. We envision a dynamic ecosystem where innovation seamlessly flows between Germany, Japan, and beyond, creating lasting global impact.’

    About UTokyo IPC

    UTokyo Innovation Platform Co., Ltd. (UTokyo IPC) is a venture capital firm wholly owned by the University of Tokyo, established in 2016 to strengthen Japan’s global industrial competitiveness through startup investment and ecosystem building.

    As a public–private venture capital firm, UTokyo IPC has invested in more than 80 university-affiliated startups and venture funds both in Japan and overseas.
    Beyond investment, UTokyo IPC operates the Startup Building Program, which supports the commercialization of research outcomes; 1stRound, Japan’s largest academia-linked accelerator; and DeepTech Dive, a program dedicated to cultivating deep-tech talent. In 2024, UTokyo IPC launched the ASA Fund under the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s initiative to promote global collaboration and establish Japan as a hub for deep-tech innovation.

    About Cyber Valley

    Cyber Valley is Europe’s largest and leading center for excellence in artificial intelligence and modern robotics. Its mission and public mandate are to advocate for research, development, application, and acceptance of technologies and methods in intelligent systems. Cyber Valley encourages entrepreneurship by uniting scientific excellence with innovation and technology transfer. In addition, Cyber Valley facilitates critical reflection on the ethical and social implications of AI through public engagement. Cyber Valley envisions a future in which the full potential of intelligent systems is leveraged for the greater good of the world.  
     

    Media Contact

    Hazel Rowland, Cyber Valley GmbH: hazel.rowland@cyber-valley.de
    Akiko Tsuchiya, UTokyo IPC: info2@utokyo-ipc.co.jp

  • Expanding the AI Frontier: DxOmics and pi_optimal join the Start-up Network

    Expanding the AI Frontier: DxOmics and pi_optimal join the Start-up Network

     

    DxOmics

    DxOmics is revolutionizing genetic diagnostics and research with AI-driven software that decodes complex genomic data. Their solutions support everything from cancer detection to rare disease diagnosis, all while enabling personalized treatment strategies. With cloud-based bioinformatics, smart clinical reporting, and AI classifiers at their core, DxOmics helps researchers, clinicians, and biotech pioneers unlock the future of precision medicine.

    pi_optimal

    With pi_optimal, reinforcement learning (RL) becomes refreshingly simple and accessible. Their open-source platform reduces the complexity of implementing RL to just a few lines of code – no deep ML expertise required. Built for developers, scientists, and visionary businesses, pi_optimal is democratizing cutting-edge AI and empowering users to solve complex optimization problems and build smarter systems, faster.

    By joining the Cyber Valley Start-up Network, DxOmics and pi_optimal help strengthen the Community with their innovative approaches to applied AI – from decoding the human genome to scaling intelligent decision-making across industries.  

    Welcome to the Community!

  • Cyber Valley Welcomes Two New Start-ups: SKAI and Tensor AI Solutions

    Cyber Valley Welcomes Two New Start-ups: SKAI and Tensor AI Solutions

    SKAI

    SKAI is on a mission to revolutionize dermatology with the use of AI. Their smart beauty assistant uses brain-inspired AI to provide hyper-personalized, science-backed skincare recommendations for both, consumers and dermatologists. By combining intuitive design with advanced AI, SKAI creates user experiences that are both quick, intelligent, and empathetic – making expert-level skincare acessible for everyone. 

     

    Tensor AI Solutions 

    Tensor AI Solutions provides customers with transparent and reliable AI software to automate their processes in an efficient and controllable way. From data assessment to prototyping and deployment, the start-up delivers tailor-made solutions for sectors like manufacturing, logistics, and finance — turning raw data into real-world impact.

    By joining the Cyber Valley Start-up Network, SKAI and Tensor AI Solutions bring new dimensions of innovation — from AI in beauty to enterprise transformation — strengthening the Community's mission to lead the charge in applied AI research and entrepreneurship. 

    Welcome aboard, SKAI and Tensor AI solutions.

  • Biocompile and Ubitium strengthen the growing Start-up Network

    Biocompile and Ubitium strengthen the growing Start-up Network

     

    Biocompile

    Biocompile is a TechBio company offering an AI-as-a-Service platform tailored for microbial strain engineers in biomanufacturing. By merging automated research with AI-optimized gene sequences, Biocompile delivers precise gene modification recommendations, accelerating strain engineering and supporting the transition to a bio-based economy.

    Ubitium

    Ubitium is developing a universal RISC-V microprocessor, which aims to replace conventional processors by enabling the execution of diverse code, algorithms, and applications with maximum efficiency. This technology reduces computational complexity and costs while optimizing performance for robotics and heterogeneous computing workloads.

    These start-ups are leveraging AI to drive innovation, expand technological possibilities, and are both a great contribution to Cyber Valley's thriving Start-up Network. Welcome to the Community!