TACNET 4.0 aims to further develop the so-called tactile Internet for the digitization of production and robotics. The mobile communications standard 5G is to serve as the basis for this. "This creates a basis for a variety of industrial applications focused on the needs of the market," explains the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). It is coordinating the project funded by the Federal Ministry of Research together with Nokia Bell Labs .

When 5G starts in 2020, the Internet will be tactile, with imperceptible response times of less than a millisecond. The Fraunhofer Society is also impressed by the tactile Internet and sees it as the "next leap in innovation." According to the DFKI, the highest level of reliability and real-time communication required for networked production will however "not yet be supported end-to-end" in the first phase. TACNET 4.0 is expected to develop the necessary concepts and algorithms to create the conditions for many Industry 4.0 applications. The project is also intended to explore new approaches such as edge cloud-supported real-time control and remote services.