Delegation on the road

A look at our Bavarian friends in Munich

Leading the delegation: LH Thomas Stelzer (from right), Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce President Doris Hummer and Provincial Councillor Markus Achleitner.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Land OÖ/Max Mayrhofer)

Our German neighbor Bavaria is both an inspiration and a source of ideas: business representatives and top politicians from Upper Austria were on a study trip to Munich. The "Krone" was there. 

You don't need much comfort to program robots with the help of artificial intelligence so that they can replace humans in the production of vehicles: The doctoral students from China, South Korea and the USA are sitting in a stuffy basement of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

The Big Bang Theory in Bavarian
Down there, in the AI factory at the Technical University of Munich, it feels like 35 degrees, the young men and women are sitting in front of their laptops, concentrating. They are completely oblivious to the presence of a delegation from Upper Austria, led by Upper Austrian Governor Thomas Stelzer, Markus Achleitner, State Councillor for Economic Affairs, and Doris Hummer, President of the Chamber of Commerce - Big Bang Theory in Bavarian, so to speak.

Stelzer met Markus Söder in Munich. Topics included the payment card for asylum seekers and the situation in general.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Land OÖ/Max Mayrhofer)

Bavaria is investing billions in digitalization
At the beginning of this week, representatives from politics, business and science were shown how the friendly German state is investing billions of euros in digitalization and the necessary research. The focus is on the use of artificial intelligence. Start-ups are being supported and many initiatives have been launched.

IT:U President Lindstaedt was shown projects by young German researchers.(Bild: Robert Loy)

Gigantic, strictly secured, impressive
A few kilometers outside the city, the next wow effect for the Upper Austrian delegation, which also included the rectors and presidents of the Linz JKU (Stefan Koch), the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (Gerald Reisinger), the IT:U (Stefanie Lindstaedt), which is currently being founded, and the University of Art (Brigitte Hütter). The Leibnitz Computing Center of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities houses the infrastructure of servers that the researchers need to run their applications. Everything is gigantic, everything is strictly secured - impressive!

With an export volume of €19 billion per year, Bavaria is Austria's most important buyer of domestic products - and a strong role model. Our policy is just as critical as Bavaria's when it comes to Brussels, for example. At meetings with Prime Minister Markus Söder and Vice-President Hubert Aiwanger, there was agreement that the regulatory frenzy and bureaucracy would in no way help the necessary growth.

However, Bavaria has a decisive advantage, Stelzer summarized: "In contrast to Austria, the competencies for education and security are regulated in our own federal state. That makes a lot of things easier."