Wolfgang Wahlster receives the Konrad Zuse Medal
Prof. Wolfgang Wahlster, © Jim Rakete
The Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI – German Informatics Society) is awarding Professor Wolfgang Wahlster, long-time Chairman of the Management Board of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the prestigious Konrad Zuse Medal for Services to Computer Science. With this award, the GI honors the outstanding scientific achievements and extraordinary commitment of a researcher who has had a lasting impact on AI research in Germany and Europe. The festive award ceremony will take place on September 17, 2025, during the INFORMATIK FESTIVAL 2025 in Potsdam.
The following text has been machine translated from the German and has undergone no postediting.
Prof. Wahlster has shaped the DFKI since its founding and, during his time as Chairman of the Management Board from 1997 to 2019, developed it into one of the world’s largest and most renowned AI research centers. Under his leadership, the DFKI became a strong cooperation partner for industry. Wahlster initiated numerous flagship projects, promoted the transfer of research into economic applications, and represented Germany internationally as a thought leader in AI. He continues to be closely connected to the DFKI as Chief Advisor.
Wolfgang Wahlster’s scientific work spans groundbreaking basic research through to the successful transfer into industrial practice. He gained international recognition in particular for pioneering contributions in the fields of spoken dialogue systems, multimodal human-machine interaction, and interpretation systems for spontaneous speech.
GI President Christine Regitz:
“Wolfgang Wahlster is not only an extraordinarily influential scientist but also a very successful university professor and science manager who has had a decisive impact on European AI research. In addition, he contributes his expertise to political and societal debates and takes clear positions, for example on the issue of data ethics.”
Wahlster himself says:
“Receiving the highest award of the GI is also a great joy for me because it gives Artificial Intelligence—my research field in computer science for 50 years now—the appropriate recognition and appreciation. I had the privilege of engaging in several in-depth professional discussions with Konrad Zuse, one of the fathers of the computer. His early ideas about programming a chess computer already fascinated me as a computer science student. I was also fortunate to help shape the birth of AI in Germany, publishing my first research result on spoken dialogue systems in 1975—systems that today are widely known through ChatGPT. After many years of skepticism about AI among computer science colleagues and some setbacks, I can now participate in the greatest flourishing of AI to date. Today it is a fixed part of our professional and private lives and is considered by the German Federal Government’s High-Tech Agenda as a key technology.”
DFKI CEO Antonio Krüger:
“On behalf of all employees, I warmly congratulate Professor Wahlster on receiving the highest award for computer science in the German-speaking world. We are proud to count the first AI researcher among us who has been honored with the Konrad Zuse Medal for his life’s work.”
In addition to his research, Wolfgang Wahlster is active in numerous renowned scientific academies. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, the Royal Swedish Nobel Prize Academy in Stockholm, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. As a doctoral advisor, he has supervised 77 dissertations, and 22 of his former doctoral students now hold professorships themselves.
The Konrad Zuse Medal has been awarded by the GI since 1987 to individuals who have rendered outstanding services to computer science.
The official presentation of the medal will take place on September 17, 2025, during the Community Dinner of the INFORMATIK FESTIVAL 2025 in Potsdam.
Details: https://informatik2025.gi.de/abendveranstaltungen.html
Further information:
www.wolfgang-wahlster.de
DFKI News: https://www.dfki.de/web/news/wolfgang-wahlster-erhaelt-die-konrad-zuse-medaille