display
When the Google researchers published a paper on the subject of quantum computers in the journal “Nature” in autumn 2019, they caused a sensation: The employees of the research arm “Research” were the first in the world to build a functioning quantum computer that could solve a mathematical problem 10,000 times faster could solve than a conventional supercomputer.
"Quantum supremacy", the proof that quantum computers work, was provided - by a corporation, not by researchers at a university institute or a state research facility.
Not only Google, but also Microsoft, Facebook and IBM are currently investing billions of dollars per year in basic research on everything to do with quantum computers - and they dominate the field of research with their publications.
What's more, the quantum computer is not the only subject in which corporations are making decisive advances in basic research:
They also dominate in the areas of supercomputers, artificial intelligence, bio-informatics, robotics and computer architecture.
In the competition among each other, the corporations have increased their research budgets extremely in recent years - and the billions in investments bring results.
display
A look at the current balance sheets shows the sums invested by the US IT giants.
According to this, Google alone invested a good 27.5 billion dollars last year, 15 billion more than in 2015. Microsoft's research and development spending in 2020 was a good 19 billion dollars, almost twice as much as five years ago.
Facebook was only a little behind Microsoft at just under $ 19 billion, the company has quadrupled its research spending since 2015. Apple increased from $ 8 billion to $ 19 billion, but the company invests less in basic research and more in hardware development.
Source: WORLD infographic
Finally, Amazon shows a huge 42 billion dollars in its balance sheet, compared to twelve billion in 2015 - however, the group explains in its balance sheet that this amount also includes spending on "content", i.e. for music and film rights as well as series and film productions for the in-house streaming services are included.
Investments in the global infrastructure of the in-house cloud service AWS are also included in some cases.
Nonetheless, external analysts such as Bloomberg estimate that Amazon spends about $ 26 billion a year directly on research and development.
All of the above-mentioned companies significantly increased their investments in research in the crisis year 2020.
US big tech invests more than all of Germany
In contrast, Corona 2020 caused a decline in investments in the future in Europe, as a current analysis by the EY consultancy for WELT shows: Volkswagen, the German group with the highest research and development budget, invested twelve billion euros in 2020, compared to 13.1 in the previous year.
BMW (5.6 billion euros) and Daimler (6.1) also saved slightly, SAP with 4.5 billion and Siemens with 4.4 billion increased slightly.
Only the chemical company Bayer invested significantly more with a good seven billion euros, almost two billion euros more than in the previous year.
display
Together, the 25 listed German companies with the most research according to budget invested 56 billion euros in 2020.
Overall, the Federal Statistical Office is assuming research expenditure of 110 billion euros in Germany; the figure is from 2019 and is likely to be lower in 2020.
The five quoted US giants alone are investing around 108 billion euros in research as all companies, research institutions and universities in Germany put together.
The comparison, of course, is lagging - but it makes the dimensions clear.
“We are currently seeing which companies are getting through the crisis so well that they can even gain ground in the competition for innovations - and which ones have to save.
We will only see the advantages and disadvantages that this will cause in three or four years ”, predicts Mathieu Meyer, Managing Partner at EY, in an interview with WELT.
“Of course, the US IT giants can easily invest large sums of money in research as this is what their investors are expected to do.
These investments contribute to the expectation of groundbreaking new technologies in the future, as reflected in the current share prices. "
But what do the giants get for their huge expenses?
"We are currently seeing how fundamentally new technologies are emerging from the research labs of the corporations," says Damian Borth, Director of the Institute for Computer Science at the University of St. Gallen, WELT.
“For example quantum computers, or groundbreaking successes in the field of AI such as the Alphafold project by Google's subsidiary Deepmind, which solves the 50-year-old problem of protein folding.
Not only is progress made in a game, the entire board is exchanged. "
"Internal Science Darwinism" and exorbitant salaries
display
In addition to spectacular individual successes, the corporations also gain continuous competitive advantages over smaller competitors through their investments, explains the researcher: “With budgets like this, you can afford to compete with several small teams on the same problem at the same time.
This not only saves time compared to the competition, but also allows you to practice a kind of internal science Darwinism that leaves the most talented teams behind. "
In the competition for young scientific talents, the corporations can choose among the best applicants anyway thanks to exorbitant salaries: A young doctoral student at Google or Facebook earns significantly more than a professor at a German university, a German professor complains to WELT.
Source: WORLD infographic
In addition, the corporations can simultaneously exploit synergy effects through their investments in several basic fields, explains expert Borth.
"These effects prevent to a certain extent that, as actually expected, the marginal utility of the research investments declines."
One example of this is a competition for quantum computer research called "QHack Open Hackathlon", which Google is currently calling: The 50 participating teams from universities are the first to access a specially developed interface called "Floq", with which they can run their simulations on special AI Run servers in Google's huge cloud infrastructure - a hundred times faster than possible anywhere else, according to Google.
Such offers attract the best research groups, as they imply a time advantage over other projects, for example at state universities.
Last but not least, the corporations indirectly determine through donations and collaborations which topics are also being researched at universities.
"If you want to get money, you have to apply with a project," explains Borth.
"Since the US corporations want to deduct such donations from taxes, they are not allowed to specify results directly - so they choose in advance what they want to fund." Those who apply cleverly not only get money, but also get the first access to new ones Research hardware or corporate computer infrastructure.
Proximity of corporations to academic research
In 2016, for example, Facebook specifically donated servers for suitable AI research projects at universities in Germany and France.
On request, the group lists 22 universities in England, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, which they support with research funding and prize money for projects, including elite companies such as Oxford and German research heavyweights such as the Technical University of Munich and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology.
Amazon is specifically establishing research laboratories across Europe at university locations such as Berlin or Tübingen, and is looking for proximity to research communities there.
"The research of the 'Lablet' in Tübingen aims to establish a culture of exchanging research results in the form of publications, open source code and data," comments an Amazon spokeswoman.
"The research teams cooperate informally with faculties and departments around the world by supporting doctoral students and organizing joint academic conferences."
display
The proximity of the corporations to academic research not only makes it easier to select new talent - it also makes it possible to establish your own interfaces or technology standards as global research standards and thus to bind researchers even more closely to your own infrastructure.
All of this is nothing new, all of this has also been part of the repertoire of the DAX companies for decades.
What is new about this is the dimension of engagement.
“You can't force innovation,” says Borth, commenting on the activities.
"But with such investments you can ensure that you don't miss any innovation, that you are right at the forefront when the next technology revolution comes."
"Everything on shares" is the daily stock market shot from the WELT business editorial team. Every morning from 7 a.m. with the financial journalists from WELT. For stock market experts and beginners.
Subscribe to the podcast on
Spotify
,
Apple Podcast
,
Amazon Music
and
Deezer
.
Or directly via
RSS feed
.