The Cyber Valley initiative of the the German state of Baden-Würtemberg is only half a year old, and today the FAZ reported some initial successes. While most founding partners are German companies and universities, Facebook is joining it as well - which probably means setting up some kind of research lab in this part of Germany.

In Cyber Valley, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the state of Baden-Württemberg, the universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen, together with Bosch, Daimler, Porsche, BMW, ZF Friedrichshafen and Facebook are working together to boost research and development in artificial intelligence. The result is one of the largest research partnerships in Europe in the area of artificial intelligence. The state of Baden-Württemberg will invest more than EUR 50 million in the initiative in the coming years.

As a first step, nine and later five Cyber Valley Research Groups will be set up. These will be funded by the federal state, the core partners and a consortium of foundations in Baden-Württemberg. In a second development phase, the federal state will use special funding to support a shared new building project that will be the physical centre of Cyber Valley.

Cyber Valley even has a website: http://cyber-valley.de

…which begs the question: What is the website of Silicon Valley? ;-)