Bamberg wins the innovation competition: AI center supports SMEs!

Bamberg wins the innovation competition: AI center supports SMEs!

The University of Bamberg recently won first place in the education and science transfer category in the “Show us your innovation” innovation competition. This was announced on May 22, 2025. The competition was launched by the Oberfranken Offensive development agency and supported by the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance and Homeland. The aim of this competition is to make the innovative strength of the Upper Franconia region visible and to strengthen it.

A central component of the success is the university's SME AI experience center. This center's mission is to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region in digital transformation through artificial intelligence (AI). The University of Bamberg reports that the center offers a demonstrator system that enables realistic AI application scenarios from various industries to be experienced.

Support for SMEs

The SME AI Experience Center is specifically aimed at companies with limited resources or a lack of expertise in the area of ​​AI technologies. Come to Upper Franconia added that the center not only offers training and tests on AI-supported manufacturing processes, but also free workshops to identify concrete possible uses of AI. These workshops are tailored to the specific needs of the participants.

A cobot robotic cell is another innovation from the center that demonstrates collaboration between humans and robots. From March 2025 there will also be a free workshop series entitled “Digital, intelligent and sustainable – shape the future of your production!” start. These workshops take place in the innovation center of the Cleantech Innovation Park in Hallstadt and aim to facilitate access to AI technologies and increase the innovative power of SMEs.

Successful innovation competition

As part of the innovation competition, a total of five winners were chosen in various categories such as business, health, culture and tourism as well as mobility. The advisory board evaluated the projects according to criteria such as uniqueness, stage of implementation, image potential, core topics and relevance for new settlements. These five winners have the opportunity to win the title “Innovator of the Year” at the competition of the information network “The German Economy”, which will take place on November 14, 2025 in Berlin.

The winning projects will be presented in a planned marketing campaign by Oberfranken Offensive in northern Bavaria. These initiatives not only promote the culture of innovation in the region, but also create a network that promotes exchange and networking between regional companies in the field of artificial intelligence.