As of: March 15, 2024, 6:11 p.m
By: Sabina Brosch
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The foundation stone is equipped (from left) by IKS head Mario Trapp, State Chancellery head Florian Herrmann, Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger and Hans-Otto Felhütter, director at the Fraunhofer Society, among other things with a Merkur edition.
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The Fraunhofer Institute is currently building a building on the Garching campus where AI research will be conducted.
The new building should be ready for occupancy in 2025.
Garching – What do cruise control, electronic patient files and an industrial robot have in common?
They are based on cognitive systems - the research basis of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems (IKS), which will move into its own building on the Garching research campus in summer 2025.
The construction work for this is already underway.
Now the foundation stone was laid in the presence of Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (FW), who only briefly posed for a photo - and then left again.
Mobility, healthcare as well as automation, digitalization and networking are future technologies that IKS is concerned with.
In order to further advance “Safe Intelligence”, secure artificial intelligence, the IKS is receiving its own new building on the campus in Garching.
Research on 8,500 square meters
The building on Lichtenbergstrasse is still a shell, scaffolded and only the dimensions of the 8,500 square meter building are visible.
However, institute director Mario Trapp expects to be able to move in with his employees by summer 2025 and finally have test rooms and project space.
The lack of space in the previously rented building has not yet made this possible.
The actual research and development work takes place on the upper floor.
“But we also have space for our customers and research partners as well as a living lab in which we can test, demonstrate and offer innovative solutions in specific applications,” said Trapp.
The transfer of research results to industry is important for the Fraunhofer Institutes; “two thirds of our work is financed by orders from industry and publicly funded research projects.”
Cognitive systems have become indispensable in many areas and will increasingly expand into industrial and economic areas.
Driving assistance or parking assistants and self-driving cars are seen as groundbreaking technology for future mobility.
Electronic patient records, robot assistants in the operating room and AI-supported diagnosis have all found their way into medicine.
Robots have also been used in industry for decades.
Here the Fraunhofer Institute is researching safe collaboration between humans and robots.
In its own building from 2025.
“A center of artificial intelligence”
Economics Minister Aiwanger calls it “a center of artificial intelligence” in a press release that the authority sent out after the laying of the foundation stone.
The ministry is investing 60 million euros in the building and construction of the institute.
The key technology represents the digital value creation of the future, “almost every industry will soon be working with AI applications,” says Aiwanger.
In addition to the IKS, two institutes are represented on campus, and another new building for the EMFT research facility is planned.
A corresponding piece of land has already been reserved for this purpose.
According to Aiwanger, a “unique Fraunhofer campus” is being created.
Further news from Garching and the Munich district can be found here.