ZF is establishing a Technology Centre for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cyber security in Saarbrücken. As part of a worldwide network, the technology group is already developing AI applications for systems and components as well as for making production and services safer, more intelligent and efficient. With the new “ZF AI & Cybersecurity Centre,” ZF will now expand its activities in the area of AI research and will coordinate and control the company’s future AI activities from here. Wolf-Henning Scheider, CEO of ZF Friedrichshafen AG, announced the location for the technology centre in the presence of Saarland Minister-President Tobias Hans. Scheider also announced that as a new shareholder of the German research centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and strategic partner of the Helmholtz Centre for Information Security (CISPA), ZF will cooperate closely with these leading research institutions in the future. This deal is expected to be finalised in the second quarter of 2019 and is subject to formal approval of all current shareholders.
“With the new technology centre for AI and cyber security, we are taking our Group-wide expertise in these key digital technologies to a new level. We are also in close proximity to the most respected research institutions in these disciplines which will strengthen our cooperation,” explained Wolf-Henning Scheider. “We plan to recruit around 100 highly qualified people in Saarbrücken – and work with them to drive forward sophisticated developments for new, digitally connected and automated mobility solutions,” continued Scheider.
Two thirds of these 100 specialists based in Saarbrücken will focus on AI, the remaining third will focus on cyber security. These new colleagues will complement the more than 300 colleagues worldwide – based at the company’s headquarters for R&D in Friedrichshafen and at other locations in Germany and abroad – that are already developing solutions in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Industry 4.0 and cyber security and use them in products and services. In the future, these activities will be coordinated at the joint “ZF AI & Cybersecurity Center” and supplemented by the latest research and development results to support all ZF divisions worldwide. The objective is to create a common global AI platform for the optimisation of existing or development of new applications, products, services and processes.
