Digital Summit: Key takeaways from the 2024 event

07.11.2024

3 min read

In late October, the German government’s Digital Summit 2024 took place in Frankfurt am Main. There, officials exercised cautious optimism before industry and associations. While there is still room for improvement, Germany is on a better path in terms of digitalization than often claimed.

As Federal Digital Minister Volker Wissing stated, Germany’s digital reputation is worse than the reality. Nevertheless, he pledged to advocate for “Digital Only” and thus drive digitalization in the public sector forward.

Digital. Innovative. Sovereign. International

The Digital Summit, first organized by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in 2006 and formerly known as the National IT Summit, is essentially a platform to bring together the IT industry and the German federal government to discuss measures and advance digitalization.

As a Heise commentator notes, this is not inherently bad. However, the event lacked discussion at this year’s summit, themed “Germany Digital. Innovative. Sovereign. International.”

He observed that “the federal government seeks to portray itself in as positive a light as possible without criticism,” while at the same time, in the face of poor economic data, it is increasingly aligning with the wishes of the business community.

There are indeed successes to report

There are, however, successes that the German federal government can point to. Thus, the self-set goals for fiber optic and mobile network expansion are progressing. The target of supplying 50 percent of all households with broadband connections by 2025 is even within reach.

Achieving nationwide coverage by 2030, however, seems unlikely, as the Breko Association has analyzed. Nevertheless, IT and infrastructure service providers like Axians are continuing to actively work on improving internet connectivity in Germany. With a trenching method, a “minimally invasive” laying procedure for fiber optic cables, or with 5G signal bundling, Axians has significantly contributed to advancing broadband and mobile network expansion while also increasing public acceptance.

Revisiting data protection and data usage

In the production sector, Axians and Actemium, another VINCI Energies subsidiary, help companies make their machines and devices IoT-capable to generate crucial data. This aligns with Federal Minister Wissing’s call to shift from parallel solutions to digital-only approaches:

“Without consistently generating data, we won’t be able to exploit all the possibilities,” he said. AI can then build on this data to derive insights. Regarding the Mobility Data Act currently under review by the Bundestag, an open-data approach would be pursued, but everything must also be anonymized. Some regulation is necessary to create trustworthy applications, but this shouldn’t make innovation dependent on expensive legal advice.

Economy Minister Habeck also advocates for more freely available data, suggesting that Germany’s interpretation of data protection needs re-evaluation. The current system of 18 supervisory authorities is outdated after 20 years. Moreover, data protection isn’t just about safeguarding data.

For him, the priority is protecting Europe’s data sovereignty to make machine data available across the EU. Germany, as a data space, is too small and not the center of the world. “If TikTok is more strictly regulated in China than in Europe, that should give us pause,” he said, referring to the Digital Services Act (DSA). Chancellor Olaf Scholz also spoke at the Digital Summit in favor of “revisiting” the balance between data protection and data usage.

However, initially, only a research data law is planned, which would allow for extended use of personal data, criticizes Heise. Nevertheless, the signal from the Digital Summit, indicating a willingness to challenge high data protection standards for the sake of digitalization, is noteworthy.

Source title image: Adobe Stock / Roman