BONN/WALLDORF (dpa-AFX) - Following the withdrawal of a rival bid involving US tech giant Google, Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems and software group SAP have secured a major federal contract to build an AI platform. The contract has been officially awarded, according to the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs in Berlin.

The project aims to improve document processing within government agencies and accelerate planning and approval procedures. It also involves automated text summarization. The newly commissioned AI platform is intended to serve as the central hub for public administration.

The awarding of the contract for cloud AI services had previously been delayed after a competing consortium, which included Google and the Dortmund-based IT firm Adesso, filed a legal challenge. However, the competitors have since withdrawn their procurement complaint, allowing the Federal Ministry to give the green light to the Telekom consortium.

Two consortia to share the workload

The contract is valued at nearly 250 million euros. As the top-ranked bidder, the Telekom consortium will receive 70 percent of the volume, while a consortium led by the Wiesbaden-based IT company SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH will receive 30 percent. The contract was intentionally split to avoid dependency on a single supplier and to distribute the task across two pillars. Should one contractor encounter issues, the other remains ready to step in, a move designed to bolster digital resilience and sovereignty.

'With the AI Cloud, we are creating the backbone of a sovereign, digital, and AI-enabled administration in Germany,' said Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU). 'We are implementing a strategic decision: high-performance digitalization for federal, state, and local governments will run on an infrastructure that we control ourselves - secure, scalable, and compatible with European standards.' The focus now shifts to deploying digital solutions across the breadth of public administration to accelerate Germany's modernization.

'Europe has enormous catching up to do'

Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges welcomed the decision. 'Europe has enormous catching up to do, which we will address not through discussion, but through action,' the executive stated. Telekom is leading the way alongside SAP. 'Together, we are ensuring that Germany and Europe hold their digital future in their own hands.'

SAP CEO Christian Klein emphasized that trustworthy AI is the foundation of digital sovereignty. 'Digital sovereignty and Artificial Intelligence go hand in hand,' he said. 'We are contributing our expertise in business processes, data, and trustworthy AI via the SAP Business AI Platform to accelerate innovation in the public sector together with Telekom - securely, scalably, and according to a common standard for municipalities, states, and the federal government as part of the Germany Stack.' A 'stack' refers to a digital toolkit where various technological modules build upon one another./wdw/DP/men