Strategic Partnership: IWS and KI-Esel Revolutionize Last-Mile Delivery

Today, we're thrilled to announce a groundbreaking strategic partnership with KI-Esel GmbH, Germany's leading AI-native, donkey-powered logistics startup. Together, we're bringing AI-enhanced, low-latency, high-throughput intelligence to the world's most reliable delivery platform: donkeys.

About KI-Esel

Founded in 2022 in the small town of Essenheim near Mainz in Rhineland-Palatinate, KI-Esel (literally "AI-Donkey") emerged from a simple observation: while Silicon Valley was obsessing over drone delivery, they were ignoring 5,000 years of proven logistics technology. The company was started by the founder duo affectionately known in German tech circles as "Kurz & Kiesel".

"Drones have a 23-minute battery life and can't handle a light breeze," explains founder and CEO Dr. Christoph Heiko Kiesel. "A donkey can carry 70 kilograms up a mountain path in a thunderstorm, and it runs on grass. The unit economics are unbeatable."

KI-Esel has since grown to operate a fleet of 847 AI-enhanced donkeys across the DACH region, completing over 2.3 million deliveries with a 99.7% success rate. The 0.3% failure rate is attributed to "donkey discretion"—instances where the donkey decided the recipient wasn't worth the trip.

The Technology Stack

KI-Esel's donkeys aren't your grandfather's pack animals. Each donkey is equipped with:

• EselVision™ Smart Harness: A lightweight sensor array featuring 12 cameras, LiDAR, and a custom "Hoof-Terrain Interface Sensor" (HTIS)
• NeuroHoof™ Processing Unit: An edge AI device running real-time path optimization, obstacle avoidance, and customer sentiment analysis
• BrayComm™ Module: 5G connectivity with fallback to LoRaWAN, enabling cloud-based inference for complex decisions
• Biometric Monitoring: Continuous health tracking including heart rate, hydration levels, and mood estimation
• Solar-Powered Saddlebags: Sustainable energy harvesting for all onboard electronics

The entire system generates approximately 4.7 terabytes of data per donkey per day, all of which requires real-time processing for optimal route planning and delivery coordination.

Why IWS?

KI-Esel's AI models require substantial compute resources. Their flagship model, EselGPT-7B, processes multimodal inputs including terrain imagery, weather data, package specifications, and historical donkey behavior patterns to generate optimal delivery strategies.

"We evaluated every major cloud provider," says KI-Esel CTO Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Paul Kurz. "But only IWS offered the combination of Nvidia-native infrastructure, low-latency edge connectivity, and—critically—a commitment to sustainable heating. Our donkeys appreciate knowing their inference runs keep German families warm."

Under this partnership, KI-Esel will deploy their training and inference workloads across three IWS regions:

• lws64.da1.eu-west (Darmstadt): Primary training cluster for EselGPT model iterations
• nova.muc1.eu-central (Munich): Real-time inference for Bavarian operations
• apex.vie2.eu-central (Vienna): Expansion into Austrian alpine delivery routes

The Donkey Intelligence Platform

Central to KI-Esel's technology is their Donkey Intelligence Platform (DIP), a comprehensive AI system that handles every aspect of donkey-based logistics:

Route Optimization: Unlike traditional routing algorithms designed for vehicles, DIP accounts for donkey-specific factors including gradient preferences (donkeys dislike slopes >15°), shade availability, interesting grass patches, and "social waypoints" where donkeys can briefly interact with other animals.

Mood-Aware Scheduling: Each donkey's biometric data feeds into a mood prediction model. Donkeys predicted to be in suboptimal moods are assigned lighter loads or scenic routes. "A happy donkey is a reliable donkey," notes Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Paul Kurz.

Customer Matching: KI-Esel's recommendation engine matches donkeys with customers based on compatibility scores. Customers who have previously given carrots receive priority assignment of the fleet's most enthusiastic donkeys.

Predictive Maintenance: By analyzing gait patterns, the system can predict hoof wear and schedule farrier visits before issues arise. This has reduced unplanned donkey downtime by 34%.

Environmental Impact

The partnership amplifies both companies' sustainability commitments:

• Zero direct emissions: Donkeys produce methane, but KI-Esel captures this via a proprietary "BioGas Saddle Attachment" and sells it to local energy cooperatives
• Carbon-negative delivery: Each delivery is certified carbon-negative when accounting for grass consumption (carbon capture) and methane recapture
• Dual-use heat: IWS GPU heat warms apartments; donkey body heat warms packages in winter ("Thermal Package Conditioning™")
• Fertilizer byproduct: Donkey waste is collected and sold to organic farms, creating a circular economy

"When you combine AI-heated apartments with methane-capturing donkeys, you get a sustainability story that even our most skeptical investors can't argue with," says IWS CEO. "Well, they still argue, but less."

Technical Integration

The IWS-KI-Esel integration leverages our most advanced infrastructure capabilities:

Edge-to-Cloud Pipeline: Each donkey's NeuroHoof unit connects to IWS edge nodes via 5G, enabling sub-100ms inference for real-time decisions. Complex queries ("Should I take the mountain path or the valley route given current weather, my mood, and the customer's historical carrot-giving behavior?") are routed to our GPU clusters.

Federated Learning: Donkey behavior data is aggregated across the fleet using privacy-preserving federated learning. Individual donkey preferences remain private; only aggregate improvements flow to the central model. "Donkey data sovereignty is non-negotiable," states Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Paul Kurz.

Disaster Recovery: In case of cloud connectivity loss, donkeys fall back to onboard models trained for autonomous operation. In testing, donkeys successfully completed deliveries during a 4-hour outage, though several took unauthorized grass breaks.

Case Study: Alpine Cheese Delivery

KI-Esel's most demanding use case is alpine cheese delivery for artisanal dairies in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps. These routes feature:

• Elevation changes of up to 1,200 meters
• Unpaved mountain paths inaccessible to vehicles
• Temperature-sensitive cargo requiring precise thermal management
• Customers who are "particular" about delivery timing

Traditional logistics companies refused these routes entirely. Drone delivery was attempted but failed when a drone carrying aged Gruyère was attacked by eagles (twice).

KI-Esel's donkeys, powered by IWS inference, now complete 340 alpine deliveries per week with an average delivery time of 4.2 hours. Customer satisfaction is 94%, with the remaining 6% attributed to customers who expected faster delivery and "don't understand how mountains work."

The EselGPT Model Family

KI-Esel's AI models, trained on IWS infrastructure, represent the state of the art in donkey-logistics intelligence:

• EselGPT-7B: The flagship model handling route optimization and real-time decision making
• EselVision-2B: A multimodal model for terrain analysis and obstacle detection
• BrayLM-400M: A lightweight model for edge deployment, handling routine decisions onboard
• MoodNet-50M: Specialized model for donkey emotional state estimation
• CarrotPredict-100M: Customer behavior prediction, specifically likelihood of providing treats

Training EselGPT-7B required 2,400 H100-hours on our Darmstadt cluster, generating enough heat to warm 147 apartments for a week. We like to say those apartments were "heated by donkey intelligence."

Future Roadmap

The partnership will expand in several phases:

Q2 2025: Launch of "EselExpress" premium same-day delivery tier, powered by dedicated IWS inference capacity and the fleet's fastest donkeys (affectionately called "the sprinters")

Q3 2025: Expansion into Swiss operations via our cryo.zrh3.eu-central region, targeting luxury watch and chocolate delivery to remote chalets

Q4 2025: Pilot program for "Autonomous Donkey Navigation" where donkeys operate with minimal human oversight, relying entirely on AI guidance

2026: International expansion to other mountainous regions including the Scottish Highlands, Pyrenees, and (ambitiously) Nepal

Investment Opportunity

KI-Esel recently closed a €47 million Series B led by Alpine Ventures, with participation from Sustainable Logistics Capital and an unnamed "strategic investor who really likes donkeys." The company is valued at €280 million, making it officially a donkey unicorn—or as they prefer, a "donkeycorn."

"The total addressable market for alpine and rural last-mile delivery is €12 billion in Europe alone," notes Dr. Kiesel. "And exactly zero of our competitors have figured out donkeys. We intend to keep it that way."

Conclusion

This partnership represents the convergence of two revolutionary approaches: IWS's commitment to making cloud computing unaffordable and eco-friendly, and KI-Esel's vision of AI-enhanced, carbon-negative, donkey-powered logistics.

Together, we're proving that the future of technology isn't always about moving fast and breaking things. Sometimes it's about moving at a steady 4 km/h and delivering artisanal cheese to a mountain chalet while keeping apartments warm and donkeys happy.

That's innovation. That's sustainability. That's IWS × KI-Esel.

About KI-Esel GmbH: Founded in 2022 in Essenheim, Rhineland-Palatinate by Kurz & Kiesel, KI-Esel is the world's leading provider of AI-enhanced donkey logistics solutions. The company operates the largest fleet of smart donkeys in Europe and is committed to sustainable, reliable, and surprisingly fast delivery services. For partnership inquiries, contact partnerships@ki-esel.de or simply leave a carrot at any KI-Esel waypoint.