Aionic Selected for Funding Initiative by the German Federal Employment Agency

(CONNECT) The Zurich-based startup Aionic AG (Aionic Labs) has been selected for a funding initiative by the German Federal Office for Innovation (SPRIN-D). As part of the Next Frontier AI initiative, the company is receiving a grant of 3 million euros to develop its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology for complex industrial data, according to a press release. In the next round of funding, Aionic Labs—which was founded by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) and Stanford University in California—could secure up to 26.5 million euros in funding.

Aionic is one of the ten companies selected to participate in the two-year program. Aionic Labs develops language models—known as Large Language Models (LLMs)—that, unlike well-known LLMs such as ChatGPT, can understand time-series data. Their range of applications extends from machine sensor data from industrial facilities to vital signs of patients in hospitals, load profiles of power grids, and inventory and supply chain data in logistics, all the way to transaction data from banks, insurance companies, and telecommunications firms.

“Europe boasts excellent research, a highly skilled workforce, and decades of specialized experience in critical industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, energy, telecommunications, financial services, and logistics. ‘Our AI models combine Europe’s strengths and take this strong foundation to the next technological level,’ says Robert Jakob, CEO and co-founder of Aionic Labs and director of the Agentic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich.” ce/ww