In the coming week there will be more talk about technologies and the future in Frankfurt than ever before: the federal government is holding a giant conference called a digital summit with 1,500 participants on Monday and Tuesday in the city on the Main. Some of the events are open to the public. At the same time, the “AI Week Frankfurt” begins, also a conference that lasts five days and aims primarily to reach the companies based here in order to promote exchanges about the possible applications of artificial intelligence.
Its organizers, the founders of AI Hub Frankfurt GmbH, have been working for over a year on the goal of permanently establishing Frankfurt as a decisive address for innovative digital technologies. The conference premiered last year and is now the second major event this year, with which Sebastian Heinz and Marcel Isbert are trying to create a network that combines the strengths of local companies and industries, so that Frankfurt can at least become a business location when it comes to AI belongs to the top of Europe.
“I am very satisfied with the founding year”
In early summer, the two initiators had already attracted attention with a whole series of events under the label “AI Pop-Up” and attracted a total of 2,000 visitors. Heinz and Isbert see this number and also the popularity of the upcoming conference as a success. “I am very satisfied with the founding year, we got the best out of our small team of just three,” says Heinz. It has been possible to increase the number of companies, sponsors and experts taking part, and awareness of the initiative itself has also grown.
An unexpected phenomenon emerges here: the international companies that dominate the IT and AI market, such as Google, HP, Microsoft and Nvidia, were easier to persuade to participate than many Frankfurt-based banks or local institutions. Sixty percent of the sponsorship money he raised for AI Week came from companies in the United States, says Isbert. “For them, Frankfurt is a very interesting location with the industries represented here.” This may not be clear to some people in the region.
Decisive step next year
In order to penetrate the local networks and also into the attention zone of politicians, it takes many attempts. Heinz, Isbert and companies like Merck, Metzler and Dekabank, which are among the supporters of the AI Hub, are not the only ones dreaming about the future of Frankfurt as a well-known location for AI developments. The state government also has ambitions here, as do city politicians and the IHK. They have not competed against each other yet.
However, Heinz assures that he is having good discussions with representatives from business and politics. They have progressed so far that the decisive step should be taken next year: the opening of a physical AI hub, an address for the topic of AI in Frankfurt. “The experience with the pop-up has made it clear: we need a home base.” The house, located in the city center, should combine four functions: According to Heinz’s idea, it should be a place for events for a wide audience, especially smaller ones Offer companies training and further education opportunities in dealing with AI-based technologies, promote exchange between industries and, last but not least, install a strong support program for start-ups.
“It just takes a few years for a company to run”
In order to run the house and program, the GmbH, which was founded for this purpose a good year ago, cannot remain a three-man company, says Heinz and again refers to the experiences from eight weeks of pop-up, in which the small team organized 30 events and 15 offered workshops. They also discovered that there is great interest, “but there is only a limited willingness to pay for such an offer.” If business and politics in Frankfurt wanted an AI center like the ones other cities are already building, companies would have to be prepared to contribute significant sums of money. “Of course I want to invest, but I won’t be able or willing to manage a project like this alone,” says Heinz, who is also the founder and managing director of the IT consultancy Statworx, based in Frankfurt’s Ostend.
This is the professional background that makes him and his colleagues experts in dealing with increasingly widespread AI applications, but it is also an obstacle in some conversations. The suspicion is all too obvious that a company with public attention is fishing for customers. Heinz says he hears this less often these days: “The effort would be disproportionate, and such an initiative has to come from some kind of entrepreneurial network.” At this point, his entrepreneurial knowledge reassures him more than he worries: “It It takes a few years for a company to get up and running.”
