The site on the northern outskirts of Heilbronn is still a meadow. In a few years, however, around 5,000 people will be working on future technologies here. The “Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence” project, or IPAI for short, is planning to build a completely new urban quarter dedicated to artificial intelligence on an area of 30 hectares – circular in shape, car-free, equipped with data centers, office and laboratory space, a daycare facility, apartments, restaurants and a public event center. There will even be a cable car connection into the city. The idea is to create a place where research, business and society can work together on a permanent basis.
The project is largely funded by the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, which is backed by the billionaire founder of the Lidl retail group. The state of Baden-Württemberg is contributing a further 50 million euros in funding. IPAI has not yet provided any information on the total investment sum. The plan is to complete the first buildings by the end of 2027. Moritz Gräter, CEO of IPAI since October 2022, has started the development with a small team. The organization now has around 60 employees and more than 80 partners, including corporations such as Audi, Porsche and Vodafone, as well as many medium-sized companies from the region. “By its very design, the IPAI CAMPUS is an innovation site and a dynamic real-world laboratory,” explains Gräter. The entire infrastructure and everyday life on the campus will serve as a testing ground for AI applications that can be trialled, further developed and scaled under real conditions.
In fact, IPAI does not see itself as a classic research location, but rather as a bridge builder between the laboratory and the factory. While the large university-based centers of expertise in Germany focus on basic research, the main aim in Heilbronn, on the other hand, is to promote practical applications. This also includes thinking about social issues from the outset. The IPAI Foundation, which was established specifically for this purpose, aims to establish an ethical framework for trustworthy AI development. “Our goal is to design artificial intelligence in the service of people,” says Gräter – true to the IPA motto “Creating The Global Home of Human AI.”
