idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
North Rhine-Westphalia will become home to a new unit within the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), one of Europe’s leading networks for artificial intelligence research. The newly approved ELLIS Unit NRW brings together leading AI researchers and large-scale computing infrastructure across the region to advance open-source foundation models, trustworthy machine learning and AI applications for real-world environments.
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. Researchers will investigate how such models can be trained openly, made more reliable and adapted safely to different application domains. The unit also aims to strengthen research on trustworthy AI, particularly in areas such as healthcare, autonomous systems or critical infrastructure, where AI systems must operate under uncertainty, rare events or sensitive real-world conditions.
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. Researchers within the unit combine expertise in robotics, computer vision, natural language processing, healthcare AI and neuro-symbolic systems.
Large-scale infrastructure for European AI research
The ELLIS Unit NRW combines one of Europe’s largest regional AI ecosystems with major computing infrastructure at Forschungszentrum Jülich, including Europe’s first exascale supercomputer JUPITER, as well as connections to international open-source initiatives such as LAION. The unit will include over 40 principal investigators and more than 300 doctoral researchers and postdoctoral scientists across North Rhine-Westphalia. Planned activities include joint research initiatives, doctoral training, ELLIS summer schools and collaborations with industry and public-sector partners. The long-term goal is to establish a sustainable European AI ecosystem that combines foundational research, open scientific collaboration and real-world applications.
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.
North Rhine-Westphalia is one of Europe’s largest industrial and scientific regions, with longstanding collaborations between universities, research centers and industry partners. The new ELLIS Unit is intended to provide a shared framework for these activities and to increase international visibility for AI research developed in the region.
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.
The research institute is constituted by the TU Dortmund University, the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Fraunhofer Institutes for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin and for Material Flow and Logistics IML in Dortmund. As outlined in the federal government’s AI strategy, the Lamarr Institute receives permanent funding from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Press Contact:
Caroline Winter
Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
c/o Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 6, 53115 Bonn
Phone: +49 228 73 69342
Mail: caroline.winter@uni-bonn.de
Web: www.lamarr-institute.org ML Blog: www.lamarr-institute.org/blog
ELLIS Unit NRW launched
Source: Volker Lannert
Copyright: Volker Lannert / University of Bonn
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars
Information technology
transregional, national
Cooperation agreements
English
ELLIS Unit NRW launched
Source: Volker Lannert
Copyright: Volker Lannert / University of Bonn
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).
