Posting challenges, finding solutions, gathering know-how: this is what the AI Marketplace – the digital platform for tomorrow’s innovations – promises. For the past year, experts from science and industry have been working on a platform for artificial intelligence in product development. With success: the platform has gone live in a beta version and brings together AI experts, suppliers and users.
Whether it’s automating technology scouting or optimizing design data – the potential of artificial intelligence in product creation is manifold. CLAAS, an internationally active agricultural machinery manufacturer, has recognized this potential. The company is testing a special use case for the integration of AI in Computer Aided Design (CAx) in the AI Marketplace, an initiative of the leading-edge cluster it’s OWL. The project is one of six pilot projects in which companies are working together with research institutions in the AI Marketplace on AI solutions for specific use cases.
The topics range from intelligent product monitoring and smart vehicle diagnosis to AI-supported manufacturability analysis. In addition to Claas, the companies Diebold Nixdorf, düspohl, Hella Gutmann, Westaflex and Ubermetrics are involved in the pilot projects.
However, countless other partners will benefit from the AI Marketplace. After all, providers, users and experts can jointly develop and exchange AI solutions on the platform of the same name.
“With the AI marketplace, we offer companies a central place to solve their product development challenges with the help of AI. And AI providers gain direct access to their customers in this way,” says Leon Özcan, project coordinator and research associate Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn (Germany).
The AI Marketplace platform will be successively expanded by functionalities in the course of the project. Initially, users will be offered a matching function: Companies can post challenges here, for example, while AI providers create competence profiles. A subsequent matching of challenges with competence profiles brings together suitable platform actors, who can now jointly develop solutions.
This is what sets the AI Marketplace apart
This sets the AI Marketplace apart from other AI solution providers. “Our competitive analysis has shown that our concept of a marketplace for AI in product creation addresses a blank spot on the competitive map. Although there are numerous solutions that address concrete problems from product creation, there is currently no central point of contact for solution providers, AI experts and users,” says Ruslan Bernijazov, technical project coordinator and research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic Systems Design IEM.
In addition to matching, the next step is to create a protected data room for development and test data in order to continuously improve AI applications and adapt them to customer needs. Here, the AI Marketplace relies on certified standards that guarantee data sovereignty and at the same time form the basis for fair cooperation. An app store for AI solutions is also to be added, as well as a range of standardized AI building blocks that can be combined as required and used to develop new AI solutions.
More than a platform
The AI Marketplace already offers free services with which small and medium-sized enterprises in particular can tap the potential of artificial intelligence in product creation.
By means of Potential Analysis, structured application possibilities for AI in companies can be identified. In addition to concrete AI use cases, companies also receive recommendations for action for implementation. Using these, manufacturing companies can optimize their development capacities and shorten development cycles.
Companies can find out whether they are ready for the application of artificial intelligence in the AI Readiness Check of the AI Marketplace. In addition to determining the maturity level, companies receive helpful tips here on how to best prepare for the use of AI in product development.
In addition, companies can have their current corporate data governance assessed by the AI Marketplace with the help of a Data Check-Up. As a result, companies immediately receive a classification of their maturity level as well as concrete tips and information on how they can improve their corporate data governance so that nothing stands in the way of the use of AI applications.
A large network is behind the AI Marketplace
The success of the platform and its services is guaranteed by a project consortium of 20 research institutions, networks and companies, whose nucleus is the Germany industry cluster it’s OWL. In this technology network, 200 companies and research institutions are jointly developing new technologies for tomorrow’s production. Other networks also ensure a broad impact. Prostep ivip, for example, bundles know-how in product development, while the ‘International Data Spaces Association’ ensures secure data spaces. The open-source platform ‘FIWARE’ and the platform operator ‘inno-focus’ are leaders in their fields.
The AI Marketplace project is funded from January 2020 to December 2022 in the innovation competition “Artificial Intelligence as a Driver for Economically Relevant Ecosystems” of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).
Subheadline1: Sneak peek at the AI Marketplace platform: Here, suppliers, user and experts can develop and exchange AI solutions. Source: it’s OWL
Subheadline2: The AI Marketplace helps small and medium-sized companies tap into the potential of AI. Source: Adobe Stock
Subheadline3: The AI Marketplace creates a unique ecosystem that brings together AI experts, vendors and users to realize the potential of AI. Source: Heinz Nixdorf Institute
Salome Leßmann
Phone: +495251 29737-45
Email: s.lessmann@its-owl.de
