Research Network Strengthens Europe’s AI Ecosystem

The founding institutions of the ELLIS Unit NRW are RWTH Aachen University, Bielefeld University, the Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Bonn, the University of Cologne, TU Dortmund University, Forschungszentrum Jülich and Paderborn University. The unit builds on existing AI infrastructures in the region, including the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, one of Germany’s national AI competence centers, the RWTH Center for ArtificiaI Intelligence and the JUPITER AI Factory (JAIF).
It is coordinated by ELLIS Fellow Prof. Dr. Juergen Gall (University of Bonn) together with a board of co-directors from the participating institutions, including Prof. Dr. Bastian Leibe (RWTH Aachen University), Prof. Dr. Barbara Hammer (Bielefeld University), Prof. Dr. Asja Fischer (Ruhr University Bochum), Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Bojchevski (University of Cologne), Prof. Dr. Katharina Eggensperger (TU Dortmund University), Dr. Jenia Jitsev (Forschungszentrum Jülich & LAION) and Prof. Dr. Axel-Cyrille Ngonga Ngomo (Paderborn University).

Open foundation models and applied AI research
A central focus of the unit is the development and study of open-source generalist foundation models as core building blocks for machine learning research.
A second research track focuses on the transfer of machine learning methods into application domains including healthcare, sustainable agriculture and embodied AI systems such as autonomous robots.
ELLIS was founded to strengthen excellence in European AI research and to create internationally competitive research hubs across the continent. With the addition of the NRW Unit, the network continues to expand its scientific capacity across Europe.

Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
The Lamarr Institute is shaping a new generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is high performing, sustainable, trustworthy and secure to contribute to solving fundamental challenges in business and society. As one of Germany’s major AI competence centers, the Lamarr Institute stands for value-based, internationally competitive and application-oriented excellent research and is engaged in science, education and technology transfer on a regional, national as well as international level.