GovTech Campus Deutschland, STACKIT and Aleph Alpha create a platform for AI applications for the German administration: New F13 goes live in Baden-Württemberg

25 July 2024, Heidelberg

• A strong consortium for a strong administration – Heading towards an efficient and sovereign administration of the future.
• F13 is a sovereign AI assistance system being implemented by the state administration of Baden-Württemberg in cooperation with Aleph Alpha, PD GmbH, BITBW and STACKIT.
• GovTech Campus Deutschland, STACKIT and Aleph Alpha offer a platform for AI applications that complies with the highest standards of data sovereignty.

Today’s presentation of the new F13 marked an important milestone for the state administration of Baden-Württemberg and sets new standards in the digitalisation of public administration. The introduction of the new F13 has made Baden-Württemberg the first federal state to make AI tools available to its employees in its own data centre. F13 is designed to enhance efficiency and transparency, benefiting both citizens and the administration.

From vision to added value – F13 goes live: Strong partners make German administration future-proof

GovTech Campus Germany has announced that the functions of F13, based on the latest Aleph Alpha technology, will be available to public administrations in Germany from September 2024.

GovTech Campus, in its capacity as a public administration partner, and STACKIT, in its capacity as a sovereign cloud partner, will ensure that AI applications can be deployed in a secure and data-sovereign manner.

The capabilities of F13 also show the evolution of Aleph Alpha’s business model: the company has evolved from a provider of language models to becoming a full-service provider of a product stack with extensive applications. In this context, Aleph Alpha has announced that it will continue to pursue its strategy of innovation and sovereignty in the field of generative AI models.

F13 marks a significant step towards a future-proof administration in Germany. The Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), where Baden-Württemberg’s AI expertise and the GovTech Campus join forces, represents another key component of its exceptional platform for applied AI. The IPAI in Heilbronn is home to an increasingly diverse innovation ecosystem where partners from academia, business, start-ups, talent and the public sector can jointly develop applied AI solutions such as F13.

Comments on the launch of F13:

Dr Florian Stegmann, Minister of State and Head of the State Chancellery of Baden-Württemberg: “Baden-Württemberg (‘The LÄND) is at the forefront of AI implementation in the German administration. Together with strong partners, we have developed F13, an innovative solution that offers our colleagues in the administration tangible added value. F13 was a wake-up call. Following the hype surrounding ChatGPT, we have shown that AI technology can be adapted for use in the administration sector. It is encouraging to see how many projects have emerged since then at local, state and federal level – many with their own new solutions, but also many obviously inspired by F13. The developments at IPAI are contributing to the digitalisation of Baden-Württemberg – which is justifiably Europe’s leading hub for innovation and is becoming ‘THE AI LÄND’.”

Thomas Strobl, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Interior, Digitalisation and Local Authorities of Baden-Württemberg: “Artificial intelligence is a future driver for our economy and public administration. With F13, we are at the forefront of this promising field. Above all, F13 will keep us independent, autonomous and secure in the digital world. In essence, we preserve our digital sovereignty. This is a prerequisite for our strategic independence and competitiveness with regard to future technologies. On the technological side, this includes software solutions ‘Made in THE LÄND’.”

Jonas Andrulis, CEO and Founder Aleph Alpha: “I’m delighted to see Baden-Württemberg once again at the forefront of the industrial revolution. F13 consistently meets the expectations set by the promise of sovereign AI. Citizens can rely on compliance with the highest data protection standards, and public sector experts across the country can rely on comprehensible results that efficiently complement their expertise. This allows them to focus their time and expertise on addressing people’s concerns more effectively.”

Christian Müller, CO-CEO Schwarz Digits: “The digitalisation of government and administration is a fundamental element and basic prerequisite for ensuring the independence and future viability of our country and Europe as a whole. A resilient and strong administration is able to act at all levels at all times and is digitally sovereign. In a strategic partnership with Aleph Alpha and GovTech Campus Deutschland, we are hosting a sovereign, AI-supported, digital administrative workplace for the entire German administration in our cloud-infrastructure.”

Ammar Alkassar, CEO GovTech Campus Deutschland: “Our alliance of leading providers for AI in government shows that we are on the right track with our mission to develop digital solutions and technologies for government and administration in collaboration with the tech industry – and to make them widely available. The key objective will be to provide functions that create tangible, sustainable added value for the administration. From September, the first We are pleased to announce that, as of September, the first F13 functions will be available nationwide to government organisations on a platform we have developed. This platform is easily accessible and will be expanded with other solutions from our GovTech ecosystem over time. The state is becoming platform ready.”

Addendum: F13 is an stand-alone AI application of the Innovation Lab Baden-Württemberg (InnoLab). After the joint development of the prototype, we decided to go different ways: Aleph Alpha is no longer involved in the development of F13.

The development of the original F13 prototype as a data protection-compliant AI application for public administration was an important impetus for the discussion on digital sovereignty in Germany. Following the successful completion of this phase, both partners pursued different strategies. While InnoLab continues to develop F13 as an open source project, Aleph Alpha has created an independent solution based on our AI operating system PhariaAI in the form of the Pharia Government Assistant.