When Hannover Messe, the world’s leading industrial trade fair, opens its doors from 17-21 April 2023, the eco Association and Gaia-X Federation Services will be on site.

Artificial intelligence has taken another leap forward with the ChatGPT language model from the Californian company Open AI, which was launched in November 2022. A eco/Civey survey shows that 58.7 percent of German students use chatbots like ChatGPT. Among the German population, however, chatbots still play a rather small role.

The “move to the cloud” makes for more resilient IT infrastructures. Cloud expert Patrick Schulz from Cockroach Labs talks about how digital transformation is changing the IT landscape in an interview.

In the current budget negotiations of the German federal government, the planned digital budget could also fall victim to cuts. eco Association expressly warns against cutting funds for the implementation of digitalisation plans and projects.

Meet the eco Association and the GXFS-DE project team at Cloud Expo Europe in Frankfurt on 10-11 May 2023 and experience Gaia-X live at the “Gaia-X Stage powered by eco”.

The European Council and the European Parliament are expected to start their trilogue on the Data Act on 28 March. Already on Monday this week, in Strasbourg the Parliament voted on the draft prepared by rapporteur Pilar del Castillo Vera (EPP) from the Industry Committee (ITRE) and issued its negotiating mandate. eco still sees a need for improvement in the Data Act.

When the international cloud, hosting and internet industry meets again for Cloudfest at Europapark Rust from 21-23 March, the eco Association will be on site with Thomas Rickert, Lars Steffen, Peter Joniec and Annette Schwartze.

In 2023, the eco Association was once again part of the NRW joint stand organised by NRW.Global Business and Koelnmesse at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. This year, the Head of the eco IoT Competence Group, Dr Bettina Horster, took on the position of State Representative for the first time.

In Germany, the amendment to the electricity price brake is expected to be passed in today’s cabinet meeting. eco and the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures are strongly critical of the amendment introduced by the Federal Ministry of Economics.

Sony won a victory at the Leipzig Regional Court on 1 March in the much-publicised case against the Swiss Quad9 Foundation (file no. 05 O 807/22). The court ruled that the regulations of the German Telemedia Act (TMG) and the associated liability privilege do not apply, since a DNS resolver is not a service provider.

Gaia-X is widely accepted and positively perceived by companies. This is one result of the survey “Acceptance of Gaia-X” commissioned by the eco Association and GXFS. There is already a great understanding regarding the added values of Gaia-X and the associated opportunities to strengthen data sovereignty and reduce dependence on non-European providers.

Women have little interest in IT and technology: This is an opinion actually still held by almost 40 per cent (38.6 %) of Germans. A survey conducted by the research institute Civey on behalf of eco – Association of the Internet Industry, which asked for reasons why the proportion of women in IT professions is so low, came to this conclusion.

On the strength of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, the international data centre industry is supporting the climate goals of the European Commission. Dr Béla Waldhauser, Spokesperson of the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, is now once again a candidate for the upcoming board election.

Under the motto “Backup to the Future”, the eco Association invites you to the Internet Security Days (ISD) at Phantasialand near Cologne on 20 and 21 September 2023.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers invites you to the ICANN76 Community Forum in Cancún. The eco Association will attend the event and advocate among other things, for the protection of the DNS (Domain Name System) against abuse.

At 8.2 per cent, smart solutions in the heating sector are those most frequently used in German households. This is the result of a survey of 2,500 people conducted by the opinion research institute Civey on behalf of eco – Association of the Internet Industry in mid-February 2023.

The German funded project GXFS-DE released the first video of a series of scenario video series. These videos are designed to convey the complex technical concepts behind Gaia-X in an understandable way, highlighting real-world application scenarios. Each video is dedicated to a specific use case, focusing on the benefits and features of Gaia-X.

The threat situation is growing, say 93 per cent of the IT experts surveyed. 84 per cent of IT security experts believe that the war of aggression against Ukraine has exacerbated the threat situation. These are the results of the eco IT Security Survey 2023. Since 2010, the eco Association has been surveying the mood of the Internet industry about IT security and recently interviewed more than 100 experts from the IT security industry.

In November 2022, eco’s topDNS Initiative invited about 30 experts, including representatives of three different Directorate Generals by the EU Commission, to a workshop in Brussels to work together on a secure future for the DNS (Domain Name System). The topDNS Initiative has now published its 28-page final report.

eco Association welcomes the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court regarding software data analysis undertaken by the police in Hessen and Hamburg. The court has declared the regulations on automated data analysis to be unconstitutional.

The year 2023 will be the year of artificial intelligence (AI). The hype around ChatGPT, the AI that can write essays, articles or texts within seconds using just a few lines of input, continues unabated. Voice assistants also use the potential of AI and are constantly developing to provide users with even better results....

On 9 February, the Gaia-X Roadshow made a stop in Hamburg. Gaia-X was experienced first-hand by over 60 guests at the VLET restaurant.

Demand for AI services is high: 71 percent of AI companies are focusing on the development and use of language models. More than 80 percent of the experts surveyed recommend building a German AI ecosystem. A study by the LEAM Initiative develops a concept for building a German AI supercomputing infrastructure.

With DC Smarter, founder and CEO Jörg Hesselink ensures that service technicians in the data centre receive more important information and recommendations even more efficiently – at the right time and in the right place.

In a three-question interview, plusserver CEO Alexander Wallner talks about opportunities and challenges for Germany as a digital location and what he believes should be at the top of the political agenda.

The fast and stable availability of the Internet is an elementary prerequisite for digitalisation. Sascha Petzoldt explains how SachsenGigaBit is contributing to this in an interview with members.

The German federal government should facilitate the immigration of IT professionals from outside the EU. Over half (56 percent) of German citizens are in favour of this, according to a representative Civey survey commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry. 30.5 per cent of German citizens are against it, 13.4 per cent are undecided.

Claudia Plattner is to become the new president of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, congratulates.

The Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, initiated by the eco Association, denounces the Blue Angel guideline revisions planned by the German Environment Agency (UBA) as still unsuitable and impractical. Dr Béla Waldhauser, spokesperson of the Alliance for Strengthening Digital Infrastructures in Germany, comments.

A representative survey conducted by Civey on behalf of the eco Association has now answered the question of what is most important to German citizens when it comes to reporting critical content to a hotline.