AI IN TELCO
Deutsche Telekom has secured a contract worth tens of millions of euros from Leibniz University Hannover to provide infrastructure for the SOOFI research project. T-Systems will host the Sovereign Open Source Foundation Models initiative in its Industrial AI Cloud, where scientists from six German research institutions and two startups will develop a 100-billionparameter large language model trained entirely in Europe.
The SOOFI project marks a transition from experimental AI development to operational deployment. The initiative builds on Teuken-7B, a seven-billionparameter model released in late 2024 that was trained across all 24 official languages of the European Union. The new model will operate on German soil using Nvidia DGX B200 systems, with training scheduled to begin in March 2026.
Dr Ferri Abolhassan, member of the board of management of Deutsche Telekom and CEO of T-Systems, says:“ Digital sovereignty is critical to Europe as a business location. We are proud to be working with Leibniz University, the Fraunhofer Institute and the German AI Association on a project that is crucial to Europe’ s future viability and independence in the field of AI.”
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is funding the research consortium with approximately € 20 million( US $ 23 million) until July 2026. The SOOFI consortium includes the L3S Research Center at Leibniz University Hannover, Fraunhofer IAIS, Fraunhofer IIS,
90 January 2026