Because of their extre­mely deep and broad rea­ching appli­ca­ti­ons and impli­ca­ti­ons, two com­pa­nies stood out in our mind as cle­arly revo­lu­tio­nary and with rele­vance for the Thü­rin­gen inno­va­tion eco­sys­tem: Jabil Sys­tems and Nvidia.

Nor­mally it would be unu­sual to say that a con­tract manu­fac­tu­rer like Jabil Sys­tems would be revo­lu­tio­nary. Howe­ver, after see­ing how Jabil is assi­mi­la­ting the newest manu­fac­tu­ring tech­no­lo­gies (3D Prin­ting, New Mate­ri­als, Smart Com­pon­ents, etc.) into all of its cus­to­mers’ pro­ducts and thus crea­ting radi­cally new pro­duct capa­bi­li­ties and eco­no­mics, we are con­vin­ced that Jabil is chan­ging the rules of the game. With com­pa­nies like Jabil pos­ses­sing such deep tech capa­bi­li­ties, the days of out­sour­cing a pro­duct so someone else can handle the bor­ing manu­fac­tu­ring part are long gone. Jabil is also a pro­duct desi­gner and acce­le­ra­tes time-to-mar­ket for its cus­to­mers dra­ma­ti­cally; howe­ver, Jabil’s power extends way bey­ond those bene­fits. Because Jabil has incre­di­bly deep know­ledge of how to seam­lessly inte­grate a vast array of cut­ting-edge tech­no­lo­gies into pro­ducts, com­pa­nies that part­ner with Jabil receive a fun­da­men­tally enhan­ced pro­duct, which can open up signi­fi­cant new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. Jabil has an inno­va­tion office here in Jena for its Jabil Optics divi­sion and offers inno­va­tive opti­cal com­pa­nies here in Thü­rin­gen, of which we have many, an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to acce­le­rate pro­duct deve­lo­p­ment and enhance their offering.

Nvi­dia is more of a dis­rup­ter in the clas­sic sense that its own pro­ducts and soft­ware stack are revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the world, alt­hough Nvidia’s GPUs are, of course, a key buil­ding block for many world-chan­ging deve­lo­p­ments being led by other com­pa­nies, such as many AI models and appli­ca­ti­ons. Nvi­dia ori­gi­na­ted as a gra­phics card com­pany for the gam­ing indus­try, but has adeptly built on its exper­tise in par­al­lel pro­ces­sing to expand into many new fields. Being a Ger­man dele­ga­tion, we were trea­ted to a stun­ning exam­ple of how Nvidia’s Omni­verse plat­form is being used to deve­lop an extre­mely life-like digi­tal twin of the entire Deut­sche Bahn train net­work (down to the last screw on every train!). This News­let­ter does not have enough space to expound fur­ther on Nvidia’s impres­sive tech and appli­ca­ti­ons, but we encou­rage all tech inves­tors to rese­arch its Omni­verse and intel­li­gent video capa­bi­li­ties, as their impact will be revolutionary.

For our invest­ment acti­vi­ties in Thü­rin­gen, we retur­ned from this trip with exhi­la­ra­tion and also with increased cla­rity of how our Inves­tee-Part­ners can also capi­ta­lize on the major new tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments rapidly res­ha­ping the world. In many cases our exper­tise and high-tech pro­ducts can be enhan­ced by inte­gra­ting these new tech­no­lo­gies and/or buil­ding high-value and end-mar­ket spe­ci­fic solu­ti­ons on top of or in col­la­bo­ra­tion with these plat­forms. Key to suc­cessfully achie­ving this posi­tio­ning is kee­ping an open and alert mind to be acu­tely aware of just how these tech­no­lo­gies are deve­lo­ping and which impli­ca­ti­ons (espe­ci­ally the mas­sive oppor­tu­ni­ties!) they hold for our endeavors.

To con­ti­nue the Cali­for­nia theme, to create great value from the excel­lent tech we are bles­sed with in Thü­rin­gen, we must catch the fast-moving tech waves and be posi­tio­ned cor­rectly on the waves to surf them well.

Let’s go sur­fing now, everybody’s lear­ning how! – The Beach Boys

Your bm|t Team