The future and the past are very close together here: Microsoft and the North Rhine-Westphalia state government invited people to an event center directly at the Hambach lignite open-cast mine on Monday to present details about investments in data centers and artificial intelligence (AI). Climate-damaging coal-fired power generation is expected to end in 2030 – then new jobs will be needed in the Rhenish Revier, the brown coal region west of Cologne. Microsoft’s investment, the US software company’s largest in Germany to date, is intended to contribute to this.
As reported in February, the company will invest more than 3.2 billion euros in data centers in the greater Frankfurt am Main area and especially in the Rhenish region by the end of 2025. The data centers enable cloud computing – customers do not run software on their office computers, but on Microsoft computers to which they are connected via the Internet. After Amazon and before Google, Microsoft is the second largest provider of such services. Customers, such as companies, will also be able to use applications with AI via the new data centers.
The computer centers in the Rhenish Revier are being built in the cities of Bedburg, Bergheim and Elsdorf. Already three years ago published the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the federal state a study according to which the region is ideal for these halls full of computers. The ministry and local politicians’ discussions with Microsoft began in the summer of 2021. Minister Mona Neubaur from the Greens said on Monday that the settlement was based on “years of and ultimately very successful teamwork”.
The advantage of the Rhenish district is that the important European information highways from Frankfurt to Amsterdam and from Stockholm to Paris intersect there – practical for a data center that customers need to access at lightning speed via the Internet. The many corporations in nearby cities such as Bonn, Cologne, Leverkusen and Düsseldorf can also benefit from particularly rapid transmission speeds. Microsoft’s cloud customers in North Rhine-Westphalia include Bayer, Metro, RWE and Bertelsmann.
1.2 million Germans are to receive further training
The data centers themselves create few jobs. But the state government and local politicians are counting on companies setting up nearby that want to use AI and therefore need fast connections to Microsoft’s computers. Two digital parks are to be built in the area, i.e. commercial areas specialized in such industries.
In any case, there is already some experience with artificial intelligence in the region. An AI innovation campus has existed in Hürth for a year with the pretty name “AI Village”, the University of Aachen is also working on artificial intelligence, and the Jülich Research Center has a supercomputer. That’s why Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) described his federal state on Monday as “the German region of the future for digitalization.”
One problem, however, is the shortage of skilled workers in AI. To alleviate this, Microsoft is launching a training program in which around 1.2 million people in Germany are expected to take part by the end of 2025. The spending on this is part of the 3.2 billion package. The Americans, who have 3,000 employees in Germany – 500 of them in Cologne – want to work here with local companies, associations, municipalities and schools. “AI competence is becoming a key factor for economic development,” said Microsoft’s country manager Marianne Janik.