Rutronik acquires stake in AI specialist collective mind
Rutronik is acquiring a 30% stake in collective mind GmbH, an expert in machine vision applications in the AI environment. The companies are thus combining their strengths in component distribution with automated image processing for AI solutions tailored to industry and trade.
AI tools are spreading across industries, offering great potential for Germany's business world, especially its many medium-sized companies. Rutronik, as a distributor for many of these businesses, aims to play a big role with this investment. As a result of the tense economic situation, SMEs, and thus many Rutronik customers, are under increasing cost pressure. Efficiency and productivity are therefore becoming increasingly important.
To give its customers a head start in developing AI applications, Rutronik has acquired a 30% stake in collective mind GmbH, an AI specialist from Leonberg, Germany. Since 2018, collective mind has focused on machine vision, using AI to automate image processing. They were the first in Germany to develop a certified security system based on camera-based object and sequence recognition. By combining Rutronik's hardware expertise and collective mind's software skills in AI image processing, the companies are testing practical applications, such as in logistics and shipping.
"The trend is towards complete embedded solutions with powerful, compact hardware for compute-intensive AI applications," says Fabian Plentz, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Rutronik, in a press release. "The integration of hardware and software is often a major challenge, as it cannot be offered from a single source. Through our investment in collective mind, we can now offer this on the market for the first time and hopefully gain the decisive advantage for our current customers and future business partners," continues Plentz.
