EUROPE'S INDUSTRY JOINS IN

Europe has world-class talent, excellent research, and one of the strongest industrial foundations in the world. Nevertheless, almost all frontier lab capacity and the associated intellectual property lie outside Europe. SPRIND wants to change this. With the Next Frontier AI Challenge (125 million euros) and the Next Frontier Robotics Challenge (90 million euros) as well as further initiatives, SPRIND is betting on the next S-curve of these technologies and pushing the development of new European frontier AI labs and robotics startups. This is not about scaling current architectures, but about new technologies that are more efficient and better controllable – and that fit Europe's data, regulations, and industrial strengths.

But public funding is only the beginning. For funded teams to become globally competitive companies, they need follow-on funding, political backing, the best talent, value-adding applications, and paying customers.

This is exactly where companies come in. The economic value of AI and robotics is created where the technology is deployed: in factories and supply chains, in laboratories, networks, and logistics centers. German and European companies must be among the first to use frontier technologies, rather than waiting until they come to market as finished products from the USA or China. They are simultaneously potential customers, co-investors, data providers, and domain experts. Those who get in early help shape what the technology looks like—and secure an advantage that can hardly be made up later.

Companies can engage in various ways: They can stand alongside the teams as reference customers and/or strategic co-investors. They provide domain assets such as curated data, evaluation environments, computing capacity, or industry know-how that shorten the path from research hypothesis to deployable product. And they actively shape the development—for example, in evaluation criteria, safety and compliance requirements, or integration architectures. In return, they gain early and direct access to European frontier capabilities from the pilot phase onward. They build relationships with teams whose technologies are developed from the ground up for the European legal framework. The specific form of collaboration is negotiated individually with each company based on its strategic priorities.

Nearly 30 companies are on board at launch, including Bosch, SAP, Schwarz Digits, Infineon, Thales, Hensoldt, Ericsson, Festo, Ionos, Trumpf, Zeiss, T-Systems, Voith, Airbus Defence and Space, TKMS, Würth Elektronik, Knorr-Bremse, Giesecke+Devrient, Otto, Roche, DZ Bank, KPMG, Capgemini Invent, Bundesdruckerei, Versicherungskammer Bayern, DHL, and Munich Re.

The teams supported by SPRIND provide the technological explosive force; SPRIND itself provides the seed funding and our Advocates network provides market proximity, growth capital, and regulatory fit. Together, they create the breakthrough innovations we need to achieve technological independence in Europe, said Christopher Kränzler, technology expert at SPRIND and Co-initiator of the Advocates Program.

The companies are part of a larger network. Alongside them, the Advocates Program includes around 30 European investors, public institutions, and associations such as VDMA, Cyber Valley, or ETH AI Center, as well as so-called Ecosystem Leaders, including Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst or DFKI CEO Antonio Krüger. This creates what Europe has been missing so far: an ecosystem in which startups and Advocates grow together and strengthen each other. SPRIND provides the platform needed for this.