Shaping digital transformation in North Rhine-Westphalia: building a competitive and innovative economy and future-oriented society.

The HUB

The increasing integration of the physical and the digital world through cyber physical systems (CPS) presents a challenge to all industries. Where are new economic opportunities? What technological innovations are required to manage future systems? And which effects will they have on the functioning of our society? In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, leading experts in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) have joined forces to analyze these questions and derive recommendations for innovation strategies and future projects.

CPS.HUB NRW builds on extensive experience in working on this issue. Already during its predecessor project, IKT.NRW, carried out between 2012 and 2015, the aim was to identify the strengths of the North Rhine-Westphalian ICT industry, identify synergy potentials and future-oriented developments at an early stage, and actively promote innovation processes and the development of advanced ICT solutions. Since August 2015, CPS.HUB NRW has continued this process. As such, the hub is an essential part of the federal state government's digitization strategy. CPS.HUB NRW is a joint project of the Universities of Wuppertal, Duisburg-Essen, Paderborn, and Dortmund. It is financed by EU and federal state government funds amounting to around 4.7 million euros for a term of three years.

Mission

CPS.HUB NRW, the Competence Center for Cyber Physical Systems, is a powerful alliance of North Rhine-Westphalia’s ICT-related stakeholders. Embracing actors from politics, industry, the sciences, and society at large, it seeks to create an ever-growing interdisciplinary network, aiming to foster knowledge and expertise in the field of cyber physical systems – in the region and beyond. To this end, we connect potential business and innovation partners, promote the establishment of new co-operations as well as the extension of existing ones, and foster innovation by sharing knowledge and creating synergy effects.

Topics

CPS.HUB NRW provides knowledge in the form of market and potential analyses as well as industry and trend reports concerning the technological aspects of cyber physical systems and their areas of application. These include Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things, smart factories, smart products, smart markets, smart cities, smart grids, autonomous cars, Car2X, self-steering in logistics systems, biohybrid medical systems, digital health, and many more.

Our experts are organized into 12 working groups: Software, Communications Networks, Cybernetics & Robotics, Cyber Physical Devices, Cloud Computing, Cyber Physical Security, Smart Data & Data Analytics, CPS for the Production Sector, ICT & Energy, Innovation Ecosystem, Work 4.0, and Smart Textile.

Stakeholders

A large variety of actors are involved in the hub’s activities. Among them are ICT pioneers – from technology-based start-ups to SMEs to global players – as well as research institutes, NGOs, consumer organizations, trade unions and associations, local governments, and the federal state government of North Rhine-Westphalia. Together they form a unique digital innovation ecosystem, paving the way toward complex, intelligent ICT systems of the future.