Germany and NVIDIA forge landmark Industrial AI pact in Berlin

Germany’s federal government has formalized a significant partnership with NVIDIA through a Joint Declaration of Intent, aimed at advancing cutting-edge AI models for industrial physical AI. This agreement, concluded at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin, saw Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang outlining the terms. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, along with the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology, and Space, also signed the declaration. This initiative strengthens NVIDIA’s collaboration with the federal government and its Industry 4.0 Platform, which integrates representatives from politics, industry, research, and trade associations.

Chancellor Merz emphasized Germany's commitment to becoming a global leader in AI integration within its industry, stating, “We are fully committed to be one of the most advanced places in the world, not just in the European Union, but in the world to work with AI, to integrate AI into our industry.” The government’s explicit goal is to “systematically bring industrial AI into widespread use and to establish a state-of-the-art industrial AI ecosystem in Europe.” This joint initiative on cutting-edge models for physical AI is framed as a strategic merger of Germany’s traditional engineering and manufacturing expertise with advanced AI research.

Jensen Huang highlighted NVIDIA’s long-standing engagement with German industry, tracing it back to the early 2000s with gaming systems, workstations, and automotive design. Today, these collaborations extend to autonomous vehicle development and digital twins for manufacturing. The research into digital twins and world models has garnered significant enterprise interest, expanding beyond NVIDIA’s direct partners. Furthermore, autonomous transport programs within Germany, including autonomous trucking initiatives involving companies like Lidl, have seen parallel expansion.

Chancellor Merz specifically appealed to leaders of Germany’s small and medium-sized businesses, known as the Mittelstand, to embrace AI. He underscored that their accumulated operating data represents a crucial advantage for the country’s technological advancement. “The biggest advantage we have in Germany is our so-called Mittelstand,” Merz remarked, urging them to “open your doors for AI to make use of your data.” Huang echoed this sentiment, praising German manufacturing expertise and its strengths in mathematics and science, asserting that AI will augment, rather than replace, this foundational knowledge. He described the current industrial transformation as a “new industrial revolution,” emphasizing the opportunity to “re-engineer Germany.”

As part of a broader nearly $10 billion NVIDIA pledge to support companies, universities, and research institutions across Europe, Huang announced planned investments in four German startups. These include Agile Robots, a Munich-based company developing AI-powered robots for manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare; Avelios Medical, also in Munich, which is creating an AI-native hospital information system; Mirelo, focusing on generating sound effects, speech, and music for video; and Reflex Aerospace, a Berlin space scaleup designing satellites for rapid launch. NVIDIA has also previously invested in n8n, Neura Robotics, and Black Forest Labs.

In a related development, Siemens announced its partnership with NVIDIA to advance AI-driven, autonomous factories. Siemens showcased new AI solutions at its Erlangen factory, which it presented as a global blueprint for autonomous manufacturing. The company reported figures for a fully virtual production ramp-up, claiming a reduction in engineering effort by up to 85 percent, and agent-based production planning, enabling more adaptive manufacturing with cost savings of up to 20 percent. These figures were presented as vendor claims and maximums, without detailed baselines, test conditions, or measurement methods.

Beyond industrial applications, NVIDIA researchers utilized JUPITER, Europe’s largest supercomputer at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, to conduct a 104-qubit simulation of a fault-tolerant quantum computer. This achievement was described by NVIDIA as the largest and most detailed simulation of its kind to date. Looking ahead, Chancellor Merz proposed regular meetings with Jensen Huang, at least annually, to review Germany's progress in AI adoption and investment, expressing his desire to see Huang