ZF strategy relies on a network of in-house AI experts and cooperation’s with research institutes and specialists from IT enterprise partnerships

Friedrichshafen/Saarbrücken, March 2019 – ZF is establishing a Technology Center for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cybersecurity in Saarbrücken. As part of a worldwide network, the technology group is already developing AI applications for systems and components as well as for making production and services safer, more intelligent and efficient. With the new “ZF AI & Cybersecurity Center,” ZF will now expand its activities in the area of AI research and will coordinate and control the company’s future AI activities from here. Wolf-Henning Scheider, Chief Executive Officer of ZF Friedrichshafen AG, announced the location for the Technology Center recently in the presence of Saarland Minister-President Tobias Hans. Scheider also announced that as a new shareholder of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and strategic partner of the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA), ZF will cooperate closely with these leading research institutions in the future. This deal is expected to be finalised in the second quarter of 2019 and is subject to formal approval of all current shareholders.

“With the new Technology Center for Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, we are taking our Group-wide expertise in these key digital technologies to a new level. We are also in close proximity to the most respected research institutions in these disciplines which will strengthen our cooperation,” explained Wolf-Henning Scheider. “We plan to recruit around 100 new, highly qualified people in Saarbrücken – and work with them to drive forward sophisticated developments for new, digitally connected and automated mobility solutions,” continued Scheider.

Two thirds of these 100 specialists based in Saarbrücken will focus on AI, the remaining third will focus on cybersecurity. These new colleagues will complement the more than 300 colleagues worldwide – based at the company’s headquarters for R&D in Friedrichshafen and at other locations in Germany and abroad – that are already developing solutions in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Industry 4.0 and Cybersecurity and use them in products and services. In the future, these activities will be coordinated at the joint “ZF AI & Cybersecurity Center” and supplemented by the latest research and development results to support all ZF divisions worldwide. The objective is to create a common global AI platform for the optimization of existing or development of new applications, products, services and processes.