The "AI Real Lab Agriculture" (RLA) is being funded – a significant milestone in the process of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into the agricultural milestone. Over the span of five years this endeavour is being financially supported by the VolkswagenStiftung with up to 18.9 million Euro within the initiative "zukunft.niedersachsen". The Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) is a partner to the consortium headed by the University of Osnabrück.
In the face of global challenges such as climate change or the reduction in biodiversity, AI offers the enormous potential to change the very nature of agriculture to be more sustainable as well as more resource-efficient, thus saving resources in the process. The main goal of this new Real Lab is to further the development, testing, and application of AI technology in agricultural processes. The RLA is going to bind science, economy, and practical agriculture closer together in order to overcome hurdles in research and application. To achieve this, the RLA will establish a new platform in order to transform the agricultural sector to be more productive while simultaneously being more environmentally friendly and in order to strengthen European technological sovereignty. This process will be achieved by integrating central actors into the processes.
As a partner to the consortium, ATB is going to contribute to this endeavour of getting innovations onto the fields via adding its expertise in the area of agrorobotics and Data Science. The next few months will see the detailed implementation of the building process of a testing farm for technological agriculture, the “FieldLab Agrar” in Lower Saxony, as well as the beginning of the first Use-Case-Project. The connection of the “FieldLab Agrar” with our Leibniz Innovation Farm for Sustainable Bioeconomy (InnoHof) in Brandenburg allows for the unique comparison of two locations situated within two significantly different agricultural regions, which in turn allows for the long-term usage of research data and comparison experiments. ATB's planned strategic expansion with an outpost in Osnabrück is planned to further strengthen the RLA. The RLA will simultaneously partake in the Research Training Group of the Joint Lab Artificial Intelligence & Data Science, which has been established through a partnership between ATB and the University of Osnabrück.
Announcement by the University of Osnabrück
Background Information
The "AI Real Lab Agriculture" (RLA) was approved in July 2025 and is being coordinated by the University of Osnabrück. Besides the ATB the project has partners such as the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences (HSOS), the Agrotech Valley Forum e. V. (AVF), the Technische Universität Braunschweig (TUBS), the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute (TI) and the Netzwerk Ackerbau Niedersachen e. V. (NAN). Together we're going to actively shape the digital transformation of the agricultural economy.