Dr. Jack Thoms ist Präsidiumsmitglied und Initiator des AI Grids und Managing Director am Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data (BIFOLD)

We are currently experiencing an incredibly rapid and exciting development in AI. This applies to everyone who comes into contact with it, but of course especially to those who are researching AI. Our idea is to support them in their research during this rapid development by networking them with each other, but also by bringing them together with experienced mentors who can help them with their research work. In this way, we can accelerate their research, broaden their horizons and overall facilitate their path into exciting AI roles in business or academia. 

What makes the AI Grid unique is that we are open to everyone who wants to participate. We have deliberately not built in any major barriers. You have to bring an interesting topic and apply to participate in this network in the first place. In principle, anyone from a Master's student at a technical college to a PhD student at a university can participate if they are interested and committed.

Advancing AI in Germany and Europe

The idea is for this network to really reach out in all directions and for us to attract committed researchers from both industry and academia to the network. We want to support the training of many new talents who will later take on responsibility as managers in industry or aspire to a professorship, where they in turn will bring on new young scientists. In this way, we can sustainably advance AI in Germany and Europe.

AI Grid as a hinge between research and industry

Germany has been doing excellent research work in the field of AI for many years. And the existing structures are being further expanded. We have just established five new AI competence centers. What we were missing, however, was networking between the individual priority centers. This is precisely where we have established the AI Grid. The network brings together researchers from the major AI centers, but also from other research groups from all over Germany, to discuss specific topics. We benefit from the fact that we have also developed many new opportunities for virtual collaboration over the last three years and have become accustomed to this virtual collaboration.

Students and researchers can network and exchange ideas on our AI Grid platform, at our international roadshows and in a variety of event formats, which we find extremely important. This exchange within the research community, but also between research and industry, is becoming increasingly important in view of the rapid development of AI. Our aim is to form competence networks that are sustainable over the long term and that will stimulate AI studies and AI research in the long term

Synergies between AI Grid and BIFOLD

BIFOLD is one of the newly established AI competence centers. Since July last year, we have been able to recruit even more excellent researchers thanks to secured basic funding from the federal and state governments.

train researchers - from Master's degree programs to junior research groups. There is an overlap here with the AI Grid. The aim is to bring talented researchers at all levels into contact with other institutions in Germany and Europe and to promote their exchange. The two programs are therefore very synergetic.

Catalyst for putting research results into practice

Germany is internationally renowned for its excellent researchers. They are regularly represented at international conferences with outstanding research papers. What we still lack a little is the rapid transfer to application. But this is of crucial importance, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. 

We are currently experiencing incredibly rapid development. The decisive factor for economic success is how long it takes to transfer research results into practice. I am convinced that we in Germany will be able to maintain our leading role, especially in the strong industrial sectors that use AI. With the AI Grid, we are therefore aiming to form thematically focused, competent networks that bring young people together on an interdisciplinary basis and thus also accelerate the transfer.

AI Grid as a driving force

Our aim is to get as many committed young people as possible onto this platform so that the network develops its own momentum and the project takes on a certain self-organization. Our hope is that we provide the impetus and that researchers with similar research interests meet, exchange ideas and inspire each other.