At Rise of AI Summit 2020 in Berlin, a panel with Oliver Salzmann, Managing Director of KI Park, Alexander Rinke, Co-CEO and co-founder of Celonis, and Robert Vega, who represents Investa and chairs NTT's EMEA data center division, launches KI Park, a non-profit initiative meant to connect Germany's AI founders, researchers, corporates and policymakers in one collaborative ecosystem. Salzmann argues that while AI today delivers most value through process efficiency in engineering and automotive-heavy German industry, about 80 percent of companies will buy AI solutions from and partner with startups going forward, and that Germany's engineering talent needs a shift from competitive, IP-protective thinking to open collaboration. Vega describes Investa and NTT's plan to dedicate part of Berlin's roughly 360,000-square-meter Marienpark site to flexible startup workspaces, autonomous-driving test tracks and what is planned to become Europe's largest data center. Rinke describes Celonis's contribution to AI education across technical, digital, business and ethics skills through an academic alliance of over 400 universities and research institutions, opened to everyone in Germany through KI Park. The panel closes on what it calls for: courage, boldness and speculative investment from companies, startups and government alike.
Key takeaways
- KI Park is a non-profit initiative launched by Oliver Salzmann, Alexander Rinke and Robert Vega to connect Germany's AI founders, researchers, corporates and policymakers in one ecosystem.
- Oliver Salzmann says roughly 80 percent of companies will buy AI solutions from, or partner with, startups and scale-ups in the near future.
- Investa and NTT plan to build what they describe as Europe's largest data center at Berlin's roughly 360,000-square-meter Marienpark site.
- An open data innovation platform tied to KI Park gives corporates access to more than five million registered professionals and about 700 German AI startups.
- Celonis is opening its academic alliance of more than 400 universities and its AI training programs to everyone in Germany through KI Park.
Detailed notes
Launching KI Park
Oliver Salzmann opens by thanking the Rise of AI organizers for running the event despite pandemic disruption, then introduces KI Park as an initiative to build a driving ecosystem for AI collaboration in Germany, bringing together founders, researchers, NGOs, political actors and companies in one community. He argues Germany and Europe have the talent, scale-ups and capital needed, but that companies must move from proprietary, competitive thinking toward collaborative, joint development of AI at enterprise scale, and that this must be grounded in shared values such as transparency and respect for human rights and data rights. He says KI Park's first building blocks, each represented by a partner on the panel, focus on connecting, applying and educating AI in Germany's ecosystem.
Where AI is already delivering value
Salzmann says the clearest enterprise AI benefits so far have come from process efficiency, particularly in process-oriented, engineering- and automotive-heavy German industry, but that new gains are emerging in new business models and better decision-making as innovation cycles shorten. He states that around 80 percent of companies will buy AI solutions and work with startups and scale-ups in the near future to stay competitive, and frames KI Park's role as supporting both corporates and startups in that shift.
Building the infrastructure: Marienpark
Robert Vega, representing Investa and NTT, where he chairs the EMEA data center division, argues that developing AI requires technology infrastructure, compute, storage, connectivity, physical workspace, talent and early-stage capital, and that use cases need to be applied concretely and made transparent to startups. He states flatly that companies need rules around data, since AI cannot exist without it, and that use should respect people's right to informational self-determination. He describes Marienpark, a roughly 360,000-square-meter former industrial site in south Berlin, about the size of 50 football fields, where Investa and NTT are building flexible startup workspaces, infrastructure-focused makerspaces including autonomous driving test tracks, and around 60,000 square meters of data center space in its first phase, intended to become Europe's largest data center over the following two to three years.
Connecting corporates and startups
Salzmann describes an open data innovation platform launched with a partner, giving corporates instant access to a network of more than five million registered software, AI, UX and UI professionals and to roughly 12,000 startups in Germany, of which about 700 are AI startups. He says startups on the platform get access to an expert network and real-world corporate challenges to solve, and mentions free vouchers and a user-centric starter lab to help corporates make AI enterprise-ready, plus a public map showing where German AI startups are located and what they work on.
Education: Celonis's role
Alexander Rinke describes founding Celonis around ten years before this talk and recalls that an early opportunity to apply its AI solution inside Siemens, made possible by Salzmann as a decision-maker there, helped the company scale into one of Germany's and the world's leading AI companies. He argues that Europe's biggest AI advantage is its people and education systems across roughly 500 million Europeans, and describes Celonis's education focus within KI Park as covering technical skills such as programming and data science, digital skills such as remote collaboration, business competence for applying AI to real problems, and digital ethics. He says Celonis is opening its academic alliance of more than 400 universities and research institutions, along with its training programs, to everyone in Germany through KI Park.
Q&A: courage, mindset and next steps
Asked about the hardest part of what they are proposing, Salzmann says the biggest obstacle is companies' proprietary, closed mindset, which he sees as a mindset shift rather than a cultural or technological problem, built through trust and track record. Rinke argues it takes courage to invite a startup into a company, to rethink existing processes, or to start a new company, and says KI Park's role is to inspire more people to take that step and then give them the tools, networks and platform to follow through. Vega adds that being bold sometimes means investing speculatively rather than waiting for demand, noting NTT is planning to spend more than 480 million euros on a speculative Berlin data center and Investa double-digit millions on co-working facilities, and that he wants German government spending to play a bigger role alongside startups in strengthening the country's IT infrastructure. Rinke adds that KI Park is meant to be open to startups, corporates, the German Mittelstand and government alike, not only to founders.
Quotes
It takes courage to be in a company and take the risk and invite a startup to come in and do a new AI project.
Alexander Rinke
You build it and then they will come.
Robert Vega
No data, no AI.
Robert Vega
Questions answered in this talk
What is KI Park?
According to Oliver Salzmann, Alexander Rinke and Robert Vega at Rise of AI Summit 2020, KI Park is a non-profit initiative built to connect Germany's AI founders, researchers, corporates, NGOs and policymakers in one collaborative ecosystem, organized around connecting, applying and educating AI in Germany.
What infrastructure is being built to support AI startups in Berlin?
According to Robert Vega at Rise of AI Summit 2020, Investa and NTT are developing Berlin's roughly 360,000-square-meter Marienpark site with flexible startup workspaces, infrastructure makerspaces including autonomous-driving test tracks, and about 60,000 square meters of data center space intended to become Europe's largest data center.
How is Celonis contributing to AI education in Germany?
According to Alexander Rinke at Rise of AI Summit 2020, Celonis is opening its academic alliance of more than 400 universities and research institutions, along with its training programs covering technical, digital, business and ethics skills, to everyone in Germany through KI Park.