Minister Brandes: Exchange with universities, laboratories and companies in America gives us a glimpse into the future.

As part of the NRW-USA Year, Science Minister Ina Brandes sets off on a delegation trip to the United States on Saturday. She will be accompanied on her stops in Chicago and San Francisco by a delegation of representatives from universities, research institutions and companies, including

• Prof Dr Johannes Wessels, Chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia Rectors’ Conference and Rector of the University of Münster
• Prof Dr Manfred Bayer, spokesperson for EIN Quantum NRW and Rector of TU Dortmund University
• Prof. Dr Astrid Lambrecht, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich
• Prof. Dr Martin Winter, Scientific Director of the MEET Battery Research Centre at the University of Münster and Founding Director of the Helmholtz Institute Münster at Forschungszentrum Jülich
• Jan Leisse, Managing Director of eleQtron
• Manfred Rieck, Head of Quantum Tech Deutsche Bahn.

Minister Ina Brandes: “Our researchers in North Rhine-Westphalia are among the best in the world. This is also due to the constant exchange with scientists at American universities, laboratories and companies, which allows us to accurately assess which developments we will also face in Europe. The land of opportunity is primarily a country with fewer regulations – with all the advantages and disadvantages that this implies. For successful science policy, it is essential to identify where rules are needed – for example when using data to train AI – and where we need to provide incentives to attract the brightest minds to North Rhine-Westphalia or keep them here.”

The trip will focus on the topics of battery research, quantum technology and strategic partnerships for the important technologies of the future. The planned stops include the following:

Argonne National Laboratory

Argonne National Lab is one of the largest interdisciplinary research centres of the United States Department of Energy and coordinates many national activities in this field as a major centre of fundamental and applied battery research. A number of technological developments that are now widely used in batteries for electric mobility originated from research at Argonne National Laboratory.

Fermi Accelerator Laboratory

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is working on a particle accelerator that can generate the strongest high-energy neutrino beam in the world. With this superlative infrastructure, Fermilab aims to contribute to answering fundamental questions about the origin and composition of the universe over the next 50 years. Fermilab is also working on the further development of quantum computers using the technical principles applied to the operation of particle accelerators.

Stanford University

Stanford University is one of the world’s most renowned research universities and is known for counting numerous founders of successful high-tech companies in Silicon Valley among its alumni. Especially in the field of complex and dynamically developing battery technology, start-ups from universities and research institutions play an important role in technology transfer both in the USA and in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Berkeley University

At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, scientists from the top university are working on the further development of hardware and software for quantum computing. North Rhine-Westphalia as a centre of science will also benefit from a close exchange between the University of California Berkeley and researchers in Germany.

A visit to NVIDIA’s company headquarters is also planned. The delegation will discuss future trends such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing with representatives of what is currently the world’s largest hardware supplier for training AI algorithms. NVIDIA chips are also used in the supercomputers at Forschungszentrum Jülich. The company is working on new innovations together with the research centre. For example, a joint laboratory for research into hybrid quantum computing based on the NVIDIA quantum computing platform is currently being set up and will be operated by Forschungszentrum Jülich.

The delegation led by Minister Brandes is in America until Thursday as part of the NRW-USA Year. The findings from the trip will be analysed and presented to universities, research institutions and the state parliament’s science committee.

Background NRW-USA Year

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the United States of America have a history spanning some 340 years. With no other region outside of Europe does North Rhine-Westphalia maintain comparable relations in politics, business, science, culture and society as with the USA. The state government would like to honour this relationship in a special way and has declared 2023/2024 the NRW-USA Year under the motto “A Perfect Match”.

When 13 Mennonite families from Krefeld settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th century, this was the first German settlement in the New World. This is commemorated on German-American Day on 6 October. 340 years later, the USA and our country meet in deep friendship and on the basis of common interests. Today, the ties between North Rhine-Westphalia and the USA are more lively than ever: more than 1,700 US companies are active in North Rhine-Westphalia, and there are also 33 town twinning programmes. In addition, there are 98 school partnerships and 290 university partnerships – all of which ensure a lively exchange, especially between young people.