The start in September of this year was the leasing of around 500 square meters of office and laboratory space in iWerkx on the Hoepfner site to set up the Innovation Hub in Karlsruhe. It is therefore in the immediate vicinity of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the FZI Research Center for Computer Science and the Karlsruhe Technology Factory. “The proximity to these leading institutes promises a strong impetus for our future topics and helps us to consolidate and expand our technological leadership,” says Markus Spanner, CEO of the PI Group. The medium-sized company already holds more than 500 patents and invests around ten percent of sales in research and development.
 

Further globalization of research planned

PI also plans to set up innovation hubs at research clusters in the USA and Asia. “With our expertise in nanopositioning, we have firmly established ourselves as a development and system partner in the global chip industry, photonics and laser material processing,” the PI CEO continued. While companies focus in particular on product and production-related development work, the research clusters work on the topics of tomorrow and the day after. “We want to continue to be leaders in our areas of expertise in three, five or more years. The innovation hubs are a building block on the way there,” emphasizes Spanner.