The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH was founded in 1988 as a non-profit public-private partnership (PPP). It maintains locations in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, Bremen, a project office in Berlin, a laboratory in Lower Saxony, and field offices in Lübeck, St. Wendel, and Trier. DFKI is Germany’s leading business-oriented research institution in the field of innovative software technologies based on the methods of artificial intelligence.
In 24 research areas, nine competence centers, and eight living labs, product functions, prototypes, and patentable solutions in the field of information and communication technology are developed on the basis of application-oriented basic research. Funding is provided by grants from public funding bodies such as the European Union, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), the German federal states, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), as well as development contracts from industry. The progress of publicly funded projects is reviewed twice a year by an international panel of experts (Scientific Advisory Board).
In addition to the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, and Bremen, numerous well-known German and international high-tech companies from a broad spectrum of industries are represented on the DFKI Supervisory Board. The successful DFKI model of a non-profit public-private partnership is regarded nationally and internationally as a guiding structure in the field of cutting-edge research.
DFKI is involved in numerous committees for the science and technology location Germany and enjoys a high reputation far beyond Germany in the training of young scientists. Currently, about 660 highly qualified scientists, administrative staff and 440 student employees from more than 65 nations are working on over 250 research projects. DFKI serves as a career springboard for young scientists into leadership positions in industry or into self-employment through spin-off companies. Over the years, more than 140 employees have been appointed as professors to chairs at universities and colleges in Germany and abroad.
The research area Intelligent Networks, headed by Prof. Dr. Schotten and associated with the Chair of Wireless Communications at TU Kaiserslautern, has its research focus on 5G communication solutions. Within the scope of these focal points, the research group is involved in both national and European projects. From the EU projects METIS, METIS II, NORMA, and SELFNET (partly via the TU partner group) as well as the national projects PROWILAN, FIND, and TACNET 4.0, relevant experience in the areas of 5G system architecture, AI-supported network management, SDN, TSN, virtualization concepts, network slicing, and integration of Industry 4.0 concepts can be contributed.
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