FrAInderl – Alliance for generative AI in the Bavarian Forest

Together with the Grafenau Technology Campus of the Deggendorf Institute of Technology, the University of Passau is developing a concept to familiarise SMEs in the Bavarian Forest with the opportunities offered by generative AI in a data protection-compliant and sustainable manner. The European Union is funding the project with €1.5 million.

The effective use of generative AI is increasingly becoming a decisive competitive factor – even for companies in rural areas. At the same time, fundamental questions arise: How can access to AI technologies be achieved without becoming permanently dependent on large platform providers? What paths enable data-sovereign, independent use? And how can regional competencies be specifically developed and anchored?

This is where the research project ‘FrAInderl – Alliance for Generative AI in the Bavarian Forest’ comes in. It addresses these challenges in close cooperation with companies from the Bavarian Forest.

The project has two central components:

Technical implementation:

Development of a modular framework that enables companies to operate and customise generative AI applications locally and use them via a central knowledge repository with confidential data storage.

Competence building:

Development and provision of training courses, continuing education and transfer formats to qualify employees and promote responsible, sustainable AI use in SMEs.

The University of Passau contributes its proven expertise in the areas of large language models, data management and technical infrastructure. The project will produce practical tools and scientifically sound knowledge that will provide concrete support to companies in integrating generative AI into their operational processes.

The project is being led by the Deggendorf Institute of Technology, Technology Campus Grafenau, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Florian Wahl. The consortium partner is the University of Passau with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Harald Kosch, Chair of Computer Science with a focus on distributed information systems. The development and testing of operational use cases is carried out in close cooperation with regional companies, which contribute their practical questions and requirements. Interested companies in the region are expressly invited to participate in the project.

FrAInderl is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Free State of Bavaria as part of a multi-year programme to strengthen research, technological development and innovation in structurally weak regions. The project will run until mid-2028 and has a funding volume of around 1.5 million euros.

The picture shows the project consortium (from left): Dr Kanishka Ghosh Dastidar, Dr Sebastian Wilhelm, Professor Florian Wahl, Johannes Jachmann, Sascha Schiegg, Ekaterina Mashina

This text was machine-translated from German.