DFKI

 Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH (DFKI), the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, was incorporated as a non-profit contract research company for applied research in the field of artificial intelligence. The majority of DFKI shareholders come from the industrial IT sector: Alcatel SEL AG, DaimlerChrysler, Insiders Teknon GmbH, SAP AG, Siemens AG, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft e.V., and GMD mbH. Other shareholders include KIB GmbH, Universität Kaiserslautern, and Universität des Saarlandes.

These information technology companies and national research institutions, each of which engages in artificial intelligence research in its own research laboratories, incorporated DFKI GmbH in the summer of 1988, with sites in Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken. The company operates by funding from individual project contracts.

Main financial sources of DFKI GmbH are public research funds provided by federal and state programs, and contract research for shareholders and third parties. The total turnover in 1994 was 10.7 MECU. Currently, a research staff of around 100 employees working in 30 projects in the following research departments:

• Computational Linguistics;
• Deduction and Multi-Agent Systems;
• Document Analysis and Office Automation;
• Intelligent Engineering Systems;
• Intelligent User Interfaces;
• Programming Systems.