AI race: Who can put Germany on the fast track?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long since become part of our everyday lives. AI applications are changing the way we will live and work in the future, offering enormous potential for the economy. Germany could increase its competitiveness and boost its economy through the targeted use of AI. But where do we stand in the global AI race? Which German companies are at the forefront of AI development and application? And which players will be important in the future? We explored these questions for the Handelsblatt.

The Handelsblatt created an AI atlas from our analysis. This was published as the cover story in the current weekend edition.

Click here for the KI-Atlas in the Handelsblatt (€)

It depends on established companies and research institutes

The main results of our analysis are:

Germany is strong in a European comparison, but not leading: Whether research results, patents, investments or open source: Germany is a central player in AI – in a European comparison. However, investments in AI in relation to population size in Germany are much lower than in other countries. Countries like Switzerland, Finland, Norway, or Ireland are leading here. So how strong Germany is is also a matter of perspective.
Only a few German start-ups are AI hopefuls: It is striking that young AI companies from Germany are hardly present in the production of knowledge about AI (publications, AI models and patents). It is difficult to say whether these companies share their innovations less or produce less knowledge. There are hardly any start-ups in Germany that can grow quickly and establish themselves in the market. Nevertheless, there are many minds in Germany that provide important impetus in the international AI community, such as the creators of Sentence Transformers. Overall, it remains questionable whether these players are enough to enable Germany to play a leading role in the international competition for AI technology and innovation.
Hope for established organizations: Established companies from medium-sized businesses and industry, such as Bosch and Siemens, as well as research institutes like Fraunhofer, have the chance to become AI hopefuls. These players are already working on AI in many areas and have the potential to take the breadth of the German economy with them during the transformation. This is one of Germany's strengths. These players should be strengthened and their innovations should be promoted.

Our approach at a glance

AI hopefuls leave traces. Whether through much-cited research contributions, securing important intellectual property rights/patents, high download numbers of their AI models or through high investment sums and thus a high level of trust from their investors. We have followed all these traces.

We analyzed AI players from Germany and countries from an extended European perspective (UEFA). In doing so, we took several perspectives (countries, fields of innovation, companies and minds). The research and innovation competition and the importance of AI vary greatly between different markets. Therefore, we differentiated according to hundreds of different fields of innovation.