AI - Made in Baden-Württemberg.
In order for this seal of quality to gain national and international appeal and become a global success, a world-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovation Park is to be realized with the support of the state. On December 1, 2020, the Council of Ministers decided to support the accelerated implementation of the AI Innovation Park with up to 50 million Euros from the reserve fund "Future country BW – Stronger out of the crisis" from the second supplementary budget of 2020/21.
As a result of the competitive process for site selection, the Council of Ministers agreed in its resolution on July 27, 2021, to realize the AI Innovation Park Baden-Württemberg with funding from the state in Heilbronn.
Competitive tendering procedure
As a decisive step in the competition process for site selection for the AI Innovation Park Baden-Württemberg, the Council of Ministers agreed on July 27, 2021 to realize the AI Innovation Park with funding from the state in Heilbronn. The winning consortium from Heilbronn is entitled to apply for the subsidy based on its submitted binding overall concept. This application should then be approved as quickly as possible by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism of Baden-Württemberg.
Further information on the completed competition procedure:
On December 3, 2020, a Europe-wide, transparent and non-discriminatory competition procedure was launched in order to select a site for the AI Innovation Park Baden-Württemberg by identifying the best overall concept, particularly in terms of content-related, financial, economic and sustainability aspects. One of the key requirements in this context was, that the future operator must contribute own funds in his financing concept of at least equal amount to the state subsidy.
After the competition participants had submitted their binding overall concepts by March 10, 2021, a jury of top-class international experts – especially appointed by the state government – issued a recommendation on July 5, 2021 with a large majority to select the Heilbronn Consortium as the best strategic partner for the realization of the AI Innovation Park. The Ministry of Economic Affairs endorsed this recommendation in a comprehensive overall assessment of the concepts in a relative comparison.
The documents with all the information about the procedure and the requirements are furthermore available for download (see download area right column).
The competition was open to all interested parties who wanted to accelerate the implementation of the AI Innovation Park Baden-Württemberg with start-up funding from the state. As part of the competition process, the participants were required to develop a content-based concept for the AI Innovation Park. In addition to structural aspects, the bidders were also asked to consider the operator structure and the technical infrastructure. The elaboration of a viable financing concept and an economically sustainable business model had been of crucial importance. Submitting information concerning the areas or site location of the future AI Innovation Park were also relevant during the competition process.
During the virtual conference on November 27, 2020 the findings of the feasibility study that were available at that point were reported publicly and information on the further procedure for realizing the AI Innovation Park was given.
Questions & Answers
The answers to the questions of the first stage of the competition procedure can be found in the following list of questions:
- Applicant question catalog competitive procedure – as of January 26, 2021
- Applicant question catalog virtual stakeholder conference – as of January 5, 2021
- Applicant question catalog feasibility study – as of January 5, 2021
