Source: WestAI
The AI Service Center WestAI, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFTR, formerly BMBF), is one of four nationally funded AI service centers in Germany and is a central point of contact for applied artificial intelligence in North Rhine-Westphalia. The center aims to accelerate the transfer of AI research into practical applications and, in particular, to provide small and medium-sized enterprises and research teams with low-threshold access to modern AI technologies.
In this blog post, we take a look at the current role of WestAI, summarize the most important results of the latest consortium meeting, and provide an outlook on the further developments planned for the coming years.
The consortium includes the University of Bonn (coordination), RWTH Aachen University, Forschungszentrum Jülich, TU Dortmund University, the University of Paderborn, and the Fraunhofer Institutes IAIS, FIT, and SCAI. Together, they combine expertise in consulting, research, operations, and development.
WestAI offers a wide range of services: from initial AI consultations to access to powerful HPC hardware and an AI software stack, to training courses, test environments, and API access to self-hosted large language models via the IT Center. WestAI thus enables the secure testing and use of modern models while maintaining data sovereignty.
A Review of the Past Funding Period
During the current consortium meeting, the key progress made in the last project phase was reviewed. The effectiveness of the central contact point and the helpdesk system was particularly noteworthy. Requests are distributed efficiently, and the number of initial consultations with AI experts is steadily increasing.
There has also been significant growth in the use of the AI hardware provided and API access to self-hosted large language models (LLM). There is active demand for the infrastructure, and initial applications in this area demonstrate how valuable data-sovereign access to modern models is. In addition, the partners’ research teams presented numerous scientific papers and methodological developments at renowned AI conferences.
Strategies for the Upcoming Funding Period
The meeting also provided an opportunity to look ahead. Concrete measures were developed for the 2026/2027 funding period to further expand services and meet new needs at an early stage.
The focus is on, among other things, further developing public relations work to address research and industry in an even more targeted manner, as well as creating success stories and webinars. A WestAI chatbot is also being developed to give interested parties a quicker introduction to questions relating to AI offerings.
In addition, the consortium plans to expand its resources in the area of generative AI. The aim is to facilitate access to text-based and multimodal models and thus also support scenarios in which proprietary AI agents are developed. At the same time, there will be an even stronger focus on transferring scientific findings into practical applications.
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- Sources: Fraunhofer IAIS
Further Information
More information about WestAI’s offerings is available on the website. Information on the application process for API access to self-hosted LLMs can be found at IT Center Help.
Responsible for the content of this article are Jannis Klinkenberg and Arlinda Ujkani.
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