Germany needs digital sovereignty

We very much welcome the fact that the German government will focus federal research funding on the key strategic technologies named in the coalition agreement.

Germany and Europe need their own competencies in areas such as cyber security, artificial intelligence, blockchain or 3D printing. We need to maintain and, in some cases, regain our digital sovereignty.

Digital sovereignty does not just mean that we can use new technologies with confidence, it equally means that we can embed them in larger systems, secure them and, in particularly critical areas, develop and manufacture them ourselves.

Excessive technological dependence would have serious consequences for our economic and also our foreign policy capabilities. The High-Tech Strategy can and must take countermeasures here.

Turning away from the watering can principle

To achieve this, we need to move away from the watering-can principle and focus funding much more strongly on digital technologies. Every second research euro should go to digital. But we also need to invest significantly more money overall than in previous years.

From 2005 to 2016, public ICT research spending in the Federal Republic barely increased in absolute terms, and in relative terms, i.e., compared to research spending overall, it actually fell.

With serious consequences: In many ICT fields, Germany has gradually lost touch with the rest of the world and, in communications technology, for example, has negligently squandered its former technological leadership.

It was not until 2017 that this dangerous trend was finally halted and German spending was significantly increased again for the first time. This was urgently needed.

Involve the economy more

In order to ensure that public research funding actually secures and builds up digital skills in Germany, the business community must now also be more involved.

This is the only way to ensure that the research results obtained are highly relevant to practice and are actually exploited commercially.