Infrastructure, tools, technologies, and processes for projects based on data and artificial intelligence (AI) methods: The Smart Data Innovation Lab (SDIL) has now compiled these transfer services in a service catalog for companies. They can select latest AI methods and infrastructure services from the catalog and, thus, push their own innovations. SDIL is coordinated by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). It pools the expertise of AI researchers and industry partners.
“We want to bring German cutting-edge AI research directly to the companies,” says Professor Michael Beigl, Spokesman of SDIL and Head of the Telecooperation Office (TECO) at KIT. “The services offered via SDIL are important to facilitate technology transfer to companies and their access to the concentrated AI competences of several research institutions.” The setup of this transfer service catalog and tests of these services in the initial phase from 2023 to 2024 is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
In 2014, SDIL was established as “data cleanroom” for research based on industrial data. With its smart data innovation services, it now addresses interested companies directly for the first time. These can profit from the expertise of all partners associated in SDIL: On the part of research, these are KIT that coordinates SDIL, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS, and Forschungszentrum Jülich. On the part of industry, IBM, SAP, and Software AG have joined SDIL as providers. Sicos BW GmbH acts as a link between research and industry.
Call for Proposals: Cost-free Access to AI Infrastructure and AI Competence
Interested companies are invited to submit their innovative AI project ideas in three calls for proposals. Applicants must apply the innovation services offered in the areas of big language models, image recognition, embedded and data-economic AI in own products or processes in a profitable way. The application deadline for the second call for proposals is September 20, 2023.
The projects selected by the SDIL steering group can then use transfer services in the amount of up to EUR 50,000, which will be funded by BMBF. In addition, they will have the opportunity to use up to 10,000 GPU-hours of a high-performance GPU cluster operated by KIT and cloud services of the industry partners.
For more information on the offer and application (in German)
Projects of the First Call Have Started
Within the framework of the projects selected after the first call for proposals, KIT researchers generate and validate AI models for Aleph Alpha GmbH. Another project aims to improve the detection of vine leaf diseases with the support of Forschungszentrum Jülich and the AI accelerators and cloud systems provided.
Smart Data Innovation Day in November
The Smart Data Innovation Day on November 16, 2023 in St. Augustin will provide opportunities for contacting experts of SDIL and exchange among the AI competence centers. More information will be given soon on the SDIL news website.
About the Smart Data Innovation Lab (SDIL)
The Smart Data Innovation Lab (SDIL) is an exchange and operation platform to foster collaboration between industry, public institutions, and research in the areas of artificial intelligence, big data, and smart data technologies. The SDIL concept was developed by the working group “Education and Research for the Digital Future” of the 2014 National IT Summit of the Federal Government. SDIL provides collaborative research projects with modern analysis functions to evaluate data from industry (real data sources) and from publicly available data sources.
More Information (in German): https://www.sdil.de
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.