On the papers on artificial intelligence and a digital implementation strategy currently being discussed within the framework of the federal government’s digital hearing, eco’s Managing Director Alexander Rabe says:
“Both the AI strategy and the implementation strategy highlight current challenges in the context of digital transformation. But ultimately both papers contain only collections of meaningful initiatives and individual measures. What is missing is the vision behind it and the central idea of an influential digital policy with a clear objective. Digital policy thus remains a major construction site and, unfortunately, one does not get the impression that the federal government intends to take on the role of architect or at least builder. We see piecemeal work instead of a strategic will to shape the future.
It should be noted particularly critically:
There is still a lack of a holistic understanding of the decisive factors and interrelationships of the digitization ecosystem. This is particularly clear from the example of digital infrastructures – which cannot simply be equated with broadband. Digital infrastructures are more than fast networks and 5G. Artificial intelligence is essentially based on large amounts of data, which must be available in real time and processed via high-bandwidth applications. Ideally, this should take place in highly efficient, high-performance and secure data centers. However, these are not even mentioned in the implementation strategy and AI strategy. Germany does not have a single hyperscaler for these requirements, and according to the EU Commission, only 4% of the data available worldwide is hosted in Europe, which is an extremely poor prerequisite for AI Made in Germany.
Ultimately, there is no digital narrative in the federal government with a clear vision for a Digital Germany in 2030”.
