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PTB's Innovation Clusters

The quality of German products has an excellent reputation. This is due to a sophisticated system for quality assurance and consumer protection - the so-called quality infrastructure. The measuring instruments required for this are also monitored throughout their entire life cycle as part of a chain of safety and trust. To ensure that the quality promise of the German economy also applies in a digitalised world, PTB is developing suitable procedures for a digital quality infrastructure.

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Phasing out coal and gas, moving towards wind and sun - this is how climate protection is supposed to succeed. The quality and efficiency of new technologies essentially depends on precise measurement technology. This measurement at the highest level is PTB's core competence. With its research and its laboratories, it supports the German economy in bringing climate-friendly technologies "Made in Germany" to the market.

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Medical measurements have a long tradition at PTB, but they have an even greater future as the development towards quantitative and individualized medicine represents a great challenge for metrology. The measurements have to be accurate and reliable, and they have to create confidence. This is where PTB has its core competence. PTB ensures the traceability of many important measurement procedures required, for example, by the EU's In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Directive, but also by the German Medical Devices Act. With its measurement capabilities, PTB is the world leader in this field.

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At the smallest level, our world behaves very differently than we expect based on our everyday experiences - and then quantum physics works almost like magic. This sounds abstract, but practically applied, quantum technology promises revolutionary technical developments. PTB conducts cutting-edge research in quantum technology. It shares its experience and highly specialised equipment with research partners and German industry.

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Im Rahmen der Digitalisierung entstehen große Mengen von komplex miteinander vernetzten (Mess-)Daten. Ob smarte Energienetze, autonomes Fahren oder künstliche Intelligenz in der Medizin – überall gilt es, nicht nur einzelne Werte zu messen und zu bewerten, sondern komplexe Systeme von Messverfahren und Sensoren zu verstehen und zu charakterisieren. Systemisch und in Zusammenhängen denken – das ist auch die Anforderung an ein Mess- und Prüfwesen, das in Zukunft Vertrauen, Verlässlichkeit und Sicherheit garantieren soll. So wie Urmeter und Urkilogramm als Standards des Messwesens dienten, so sollen auch die Qualitätsstandards für vernetzte Daten und KI auf messbare Größen rückführbar sein. 

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When it comes to climate and the environment, in many cases, the eleventh hour is already upon us. But to make reliable statements about climate change, quantitative, accurate and reliable measurements are needed – and this in a highly complex system with a very large number of relevant physical and chemical measurement parameters. 

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