{"id":14429,"date":"2024-02-15T15:49:38","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T15:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1403926"},"modified":"2024-02-15T15:49:38","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T15:49:38","slug":"microsoft-to-pump-e3-2b-into-german-ai-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=14429","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft to pump \u20ac3.2B into German AI technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw-blurple?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2024%2F02%2Fmicrosoft-investment-germany-AI.png&amp;signature=45368c6521fff4a3728fdaaa638fe701\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span>Microsoft will invest \u20ac3.2bn in <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/artificial-intelligence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AI<\/a> tech in Germany over the next two years, the firm\u2019s vice chair Brad Smith announced today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The investment will see the doubling of Microsoft\u2019s AI and data centre infrastructure capacity in Germany, said Smith. It marks the largest single investment in Microsoft\u2019s 40-year history in the EU country.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>German Chancellor Olaf Scholz<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/olaf-scholz-ap-microsoft-berlin-rwe-b2496736.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span>welcomed<\/span><\/a><span> the move, noting that it signifies a vote of confidence for Europe\u2019s largest economy.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While the American software giant refrained from specifying the exact locations of the investments, its CEO for Germany, Marianne Janik, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/microsoft-invest-32-bln-eur-germany-ai-push-2024-02-15\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span>mentioned<\/span><\/a><span> a focus on the western Rhineland region and the vicinity of the banking hub of Frankfurt.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper channel-cta\">\n<div class=\"ica-text\" readability=\"0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/conference\/tickets?utm_source=TNW-media&amp;utm_medium=display&amp;utm_campaign=TNW2024groups\" data-event-category=\"Article\" data-event-action=\"In Article Block\" data-event-label=\"TNW Conference 2024 - Group ticket offer\" target=\"_blank\" readability=\"4\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"ica-text__title\">TNW Conference 2024 &#8211; Group ticket offer<\/p>\n<p>Save up to 40% with our Group offer and join Europe&#8217;s leading tech festival in June!<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>In these regions, Microsoft would be close to major customers, such as the pharmaceutical company Bayer AG and energy company RWE. This would help to keep data latency between data centres and applications as low as possible.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>AI training for over 1 million people<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span>While Germany is one of the world\u2019s leading technology powerhouses, it suffers from a lack of AI skills, said Smith. In response, <\/span><span>the investment will include a programme for training up to 1.2 million people in new AI capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Microsoft\u2019s outlay would \u201chelp build out infrastructure to help the German economy continue its use of AI and build out the skill base to fill the jobs required,\u201d according to the company\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/germany-microsoft-to-invest-33-billion-in-ai-capacities\/a-68265103\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span>vice chair<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The move tops the list of the tech giant\u2019s largest foreign investments. Last year, the firm pumped $3.14bn and $3.25bn into the UK and Australia respectively.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While more details will surely emerge in coming weeks, the big play by Microsoft comes at a time of significant growth for Germany\u2019s AI ecosystem.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In November, <\/span><span>Heidelberg-based startup <\/span><span>Aleph Alpha <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb-com.webpkgcache.com\/doc\/-\/s\/thenextweb.com\/news\/europe-racing-resolve-ai-sovereignty\"><span>raised $500mn<\/span><\/a> <span>in one of Europe\u2019s largest AI rounds ever, while in the same month the German government <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/section\/artificial-intelligence\/news\/german-ai-action-plan-the-answer-to-chinese-and-us-dominance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span>pledged<\/span><\/a><span> \u20ac1.6bn for the development of the technology.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While the investments made by Germany \u2014 and the EU for that matter \u2014 pale in comparison with the huge sums being doled out in the US and China, the region\u2019s strength could be in quality over quantity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This mindset is embodied in the startups themselves. While giants like OpenAI have been heavily criticised for creating AI models based on troves of copywritten<\/span><span> data scraped from the web, the likes of Aleph Alpha and France\u2019s Mistral AI focus on creating <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/europe-racing-resolve-ai-sovereignty?utm_source=linkedin&amp;utm_medium=share&amp;utm_campaign=article-share-button\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span>accountable, fair AI models for businesses and governments<\/span><\/a><span>.&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/microsoft-german-ai-investment\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft will invest \u20ac3.2bn in AI tech in Germany over the next two years, the firm\u2019s vice chair Brad Smith announced today. The investment will see the doubling of Microsoft\u2019s AI and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}