On October 1, 2024, the technology company Thales Deutschland, representing the entire Thales Group, has been a new partner in the KIT Business Club – the central transfer-oriented business network at KIT. The more than 80,000 employees of the Thales Group worldwide, including around 2,000 in Germany, work on products and solutions in the fields of aerospace, cyber security, defense and security. There are many overlaps between KIT and Thales in the fields of electrical engineering and IT security, as well as in other areas.

“Thales is one of the most innovative companies in the world, with more than 30,000 employees working in technical activities from research to engineering, a portfolio of 16,500 patents, five research laboratories around the world, and one billion euros of self-financed research and development per year. But Thales' innovative strength cannot be reduced to a few figures. Innovation has always been part of the group's history and is now firmly anchored in our strategy and an important part of our employees' daily activities. The cooperation with the KIT enables us to look beyond our own horizons and develop new approaches to our innovations,” explains Heiko Lütjens, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Thales in Germany, the reasons for the cooperation.

Dr. Markus Bauer, head of the company network, emphasizes that there have been successful collaborations between the KIT and various areas of the company for many years. “We are looking forward to building on this foundation within the framework of the KIT Business Club. On the one hand, we want to strengthen cooperation in existing fields and, on the other, identify new areas of overlaps in the entire research spectrum of both partners. Our common goal is to leverage undiscovered cooperation potential.” The first step was to attend recent KIT Business Club events: Thales company representatives made personal contacts with the KIT teams working on digital twins and semiconductor technology, among many other topics.

With this new member, a total of 32 innovative companies from a range of sectors are now members of the KIT Business Club. The KIT Business Club's team of relations managers focuses on active matchmaking and establishing contacts between member companies and researchers at the KIT on specialist topics, in addition to initiating dialogue between representatives of the partners.