KION Group Supports Endowed Professorship for AI Solutions at TU Dortmund University
- KION Group establishes a research hub for AI-assisted intralogistics solutions
- Sebastian Peitz appointed professor at the Department of Computer Science at TU Dortmund University
- Ching Pong Quek, CTO of KION Group: “Planned collaboration underlines our pioneering role in the promising technological field of Artificial Intelligence (AI)”
Frankfurt am Main, September 13, 2024 – The KION Group is funding an Endowed Professorship for Safe Autonomous Systems at TU Dortmund University. Sebastian Peitz will be responsible for this field. He has been appointed professor at the Department of Computer Science and will begin his research and teaching activities at the university in the winter semester 2024/2025.
His work will focus on the development of autonomous systems that operate intelligently and safely for all parties involved. This applies in particular to autonomous mobile robots, forklift trucks, and AI-based systems that are used in logistics and production environments. The objective of the endowed professorship is to advance the field of research at the highest international level. In close collaboration with research networks and cooperation partners both within and outside TU Dortmund University, such as the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML and the KION Group, the professorship will form a hub for digital and intelligent logistics.
“The planned collaboration with TU Dortmund University and Professor Peitz will lead to relevant milestones in the field of artificial intelligence,” says Ching Pong Quek, Chief Technology Officer of the KION Group. He adds that the endowed professorship will complement the KION Group’s internal research and development activities in the fields of AI and machine learning and underline its pioneering role in one of the most promising technological fields for the future. “The KION endowed professorship will help autonomous industrial trucks and other machines in the storage and logistics industry to work more safely and efficiently,” emphasizes Quek.
After completing his PhD in 2017, Sebastian Peitz worked at the University of Paderborn, initially as a postdoc at the Institute for Industrial Mathematics, before moving to the Institute for Computer Science as a junior professor in 2021. He has extensive experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. Since 2022, he has been leading an AI junior research group to develop multi-criteria training algorithms for deep learning. At the beginning of September, the European Research Council granted him a Starting Grant for secure and data-efficient reinforcement learning for complex technical systems.
TU Dortmund University offers a unique environment that enables a combination of fundamental and application-oriented research and also combines logistics and computer science. The Department of Computer Science is one of the leading faculties in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The KION Group will be financing the endowed professorship with one million euros over a period of five years.
The Company
The KION Group is one of the world’s leading providers of industrial trucks and supply chain solutions. Its full spectrum of services includes industrial trucks, such as forklift trucks and warehouse trucks, as well as integrated automation technologies and software solutions for the optimization of supply chains—including all related services. The KION Group’s solutions ensure the smooth flow of materials and information in customers’ warehouses, production plants, and distribution centers in over 100 countries.
The MDAX listed group is the largest manufacturer of industrial trucks in the EMEA region based on the number of units sold in 2022. Based on revenue for the year 2022, the KION Group is the leading overseas manufacturer in China, and including domestic manufacturers, the third-largest supplier there. The KION Group is also one of the world’s leading warehouse automation providers, based on 2022 revenue.
At the end of 2023, more than 1.8 million industrial trucks of the KION Group were in use by customers from all manner of sectors and of varying sizes on six continents. The group currently has more than 42,000 employees and generated revenue of approx. € 11.4 billion in the 2023 financial year.
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Caption: Joachim Tödter (CTO-Organization KION Group), Sebastian Peitz, Johannes Hinckeldeyn (CTO-Organization KION Group) Credit: Felix Schmale/TU Dortmund
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This release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Future results could differ significantly from the results that are currently expected due to various risk factors and uncertainties such as changes in economic or industry-specific conditions, changes in the market environment or political situation, changes in domestic or international legislation, interest rate or exchange rate fluctuations, legal disputes and investigations, and the availability of financial resources. We do not assume any responsibility for updating the forward-looking statements in this release.
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