The metal hand slowly closes around the chancellor’s. On November 2, at Berlin’s Wilhelm Hallen, Friedrich Merz greets a humanoid robot from NEURA Robotics, creating an image that symbolizes the ambition of this Digital Summit, which began in 2006 as the National IT Summit: AI in Germany should not remain a topic confined to computer screens, but should find its way into factories, vehicles, and machines. “We must, and we want to, become leaders,” Merz says in his speech. A good 1,000 guests are in attendance, including the CEOs of Mistral AI and Cohere, Canadian AI Minister Evan Solomon, and Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio.

AI Task Force Sets Ambitious Goals

The summit’s document is titled “Germany as an AI Nation 2030.” It was drafted by the AI Task Force, which was established by the National Security Council this summer and is led by State Secretary Markus Richter at the Ministry of Digital Affairs. The report outlines 18 key measures across six dimensions and sets targets for 2030: At least 80 percent of large companies and 55 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises are to use AI; at least 10 percent of economic output is to be AI-based; and 90 percent of federal agencies are to be using at least one AI application in production. AI data center capacity is expected to grow by 300 percent compared to 2025, as is the number of AI startups; the time between application and commissioning of a data center should not exceed two and a half years.

Twelve to eighteen months

The task force does not shy away from acknowledging how wide the gap is. In 2025, the U.S. invested approximately $286 billion in AI through the private sector; China plans to allocate $295 billion in public funds for a nationwide data center network; Germany, by contrast, has raised $3.9 billion in private capital. “The window of opportunity to close this gap is closing soon,” the report states. The next twelve to eighteen months will be crucial for setting the course. The report does not specify the cost of these measures. As the task force itself notes, it does not serve as the basis for funding decisions.

Industry as a Pioneer

The Merz administration is focusing on two approaches: In the short term, the goal is to develop models suitable for industrial use; in the long term, the High-Tech Agenda will support research into global models and physical AI. Germany wants to “be not just users of AI, but pioneers, especially in industrial AI,” the chancellor said at the press conference. To that end, he promised regulatory relief: machine data and industrial AI will no longer be subject to double regulation at the EU level, and data protection law will include explicit exceptions permitting their use. Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger added that data center capacity is set to double by 2030 and AI computing capacity to quadruple; at least one European AI gigafactory is set to begin operations in Germany. An AI security institute, AISI Germany, is being established in cooperation with Canada.

BDI Calls for a Binding Roadmap for Computing Power and Physical AI

The BDI is taking the government at its word. Germany runs the risk of squandering its industrial base in physical AI “due to too slow investments and regulatory hurdles,” warns Deputy Executive Director Holger Lösch, who calls for a binding roadmap for computing power and physical AI.

The Warning from Paris

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch delivers the summit’s sharpest statement: Top-tier models from the U.S. and China are increasingly being classified as military technology. “That means they fall under export controls,” said Mensch. Europe could be cut off from the next generation of models and therefore needs its own model factory for reasoning and world models. There is no shortage of talent, but rather a lack of capital and computing power; building this capability is an industrial undertaking on the scale of civilian nuclear energy.

Findings and Figures

The ifo Institute provides the initial assessment: The ICT sector contributes only 4.6 percent to gross value added; in 2025, Germany imported ICT services worth 11 billion dollars more than it exported; and a lack of specialized expertise is the most common reason why companies fail to implement planned AI projects. The think tank “Agora Digitale Transformation,” which analyzes the opportunities of digital transformation for strengthening our democracy, estimates that approximately 800 million euros—or 0.15 percent of the federal budget—is allocated to federal AI projects.

The First “AI Summit Climbers”

To conclude, the German AI Association and the Startup Association honored the first “AI Summit Climbers”: NEURA Robotics as Rising Unicorn, Langdock as AI of the Year, and Codesphere, together with Deutsche Telekom, for Collaboration of the Year. “‘AI Made in Germany’ is no longer a promise for the future, but a reality,” says Wildberger. The task force’s target figures are indicative; the funding for them has not yet been approved. Berlin has set target figures against which it wants to be measured. Whether the deadline is met will be decided not in strategy papers, but on the factory floor.