At Rise of AI 2023 in Berlin, Björn Bringmann, Managing Director and lead of the AI Institute at Deloitte Germany, argues that Europe's AI position is stronger than the pessimistic narrative he often hears suggests. Presenting Deloitte's global AI survey of about 2,500 executives, including 150 senior executives in Germany, he shows Germany ranking third of 13 countries surveyed on AI maturity and 87% of German executives calling AI crucial to their business over the next five years. He walks through Europe's standing in innovation rankings, chip-making equipment (via ASML, Zeiss and Trumpf), new compute centers, rising AI investment, and the talent and research base built around initiatives such as appliedAI, Cyber Valley and Aleph Alpha, arguing Europe sits closer to the global top ten across most of these dimensions than commonly assumed. He frames his talk explicitly as a deliberately selective, non-exhaustive collection of good news, not a claim that Europe leads globally, and closes by urging more collaboration and better storytelling about existing strengths rather than only more funding or talent.
Key takeaways
- In Deloitte's global AI survey, 42% of German executives surveyed rank as top-performing AI 'Transformers,' well above the 27% global average.
- Bringmann says the machines used to manufacture advanced microchips, including ASML, Zeiss and Trumpf, are built in Europe, though chip production mostly happens elsewhere.
- European AI spending is forecast to roughly triple within four years, led by Germany, Spain and the UK.
- The EIT's Deep Tech Talent Initiative aims to train half a million Europeans in deep tech skills.
- Bringmann argues Germany's weakness is not a lack of innovation but weaker go-to-market execution and market-share capture compared with the US.
Detailed notes
A more optimistic starting point
Bringmann opens by describing recurring pessimistic conversations about Europe lacking money, talent or industry appetite for AI, and says he chose instead to compile good news he could build on. In Deloitte's global AI survey, 42% of the roughly 150 senior German executives surveyed fall into the top-performing 'Transformers' category, well above the 27% global average, putting Germany third of 13 countries surveyed. He also cites 87% of German respondents saying AI is crucial to their business over the next five years, close to the highest-scoring country, France, though he flags the survey's own finding that company culture, getting employees on board, remains the weakest area.
Chips, compute and rankings
On innovation, Bringmann says Germany ranks 8th globally and has been rising since first entering the top ten in 2009, trailing Switzerland by only about seven points. On a separate Global AI Index of more than 60 countries, Germany ranks 9th, about five points behind third-placed UK on a scale normed to the US at 100. He highlights that the lithographic machines used to make advanced microchips are built in Europe, through companies including ASML in the Netherlands together with Zeiss and Trumpf, even though the chips themselves are mostly produced elsewhere; two Intel factories are under discussion for Germany, backed by an EU Chips Act with about 45 billion euros allocated toward raising Europe's chip production to match its roughly 20% share of global chip consumption. He also points to new European compute infrastructure, including a cloud project from the Schwarz Group, Continental's own compute center, and a recently inaugurated AI supercomputer in Berlin, alongside Hessian.AI, a research-focused compute initiative in Hesse.
Financing and talent
Bringmann cites a forecast that European AI spending will roughly triple within four years, led by Germany, Spain and the UK, and notes that Germany's innovation agency for disruptive projects has recently been given more flexibility to act faster and invest more like a market player. He mentions the UK's introduction of stock-option rules for startup employees as an example of regulatory changes enabling growth. On talent, he cites roughly 6.1 million professional developers in Europe, comparable per capita to the US, about 700 people who have grown into senior roles at companies founded by the last decade's European unicorns, and the EIT's Deep Tech Talent Initiative, which aims to train half a million Europeans in deep tech skills.
Research hubs and applied AI ecosystems
Bringmann lists a cluster of European AI research and applied-AI initiatives as evidence of momentum: the Schwarz Group's planned innovation park (targeted for 2027), the existing appliedAI ecosystem, the KI Park in Berlin in which Deloitte is involved, Cyber Valley around Tübingen, and Hessian.AI. He also cites plans to make more public data available in machine-readable form, and highlights Stable Diffusion, one of the best-known generative image models, as having been created at the University of Munich by a researcher who shares his own first name. On applied AI products, he cites Aleph Alpha and LAION, the organization behind a widely used image dataset for training AI models, as based in Germany.
Adoption and regulation
Citing a Bitkom study, Bringmann says roughly half of larger German companies (2,000-plus employees) already use AI in some form, and describes a surge of inbound interest from companies since the rise of a well-known chatbot at the end of the previous year, even when their initial questions are not well formed. On regulation, he deliberately avoids a deep dive, noting only that Europe already has about two years of experience discussing AI regulation and that a vote (on the EU AI Act) was expected the next day, calling it too early to say whether Europe's approach amounts to being too cautious and too late, or an appropriate response to Europe's greater fragmentation compared with the US and China. He closes by comparing potential AI investment to CERN, whose operating cost is roughly one billion euros a year, funded jointly across countries.
Q&A highlights
Asked where Europe should focus next, Bringmann calls for collaboration rather than competition among the initiatives he described, and for reducing fear of AI through education; he recommends Elements of AI, a free, multi-language online course from the University of Helsinki, as a public-facing resource. On success stories, he agrees more tangible use cases would help build awareness among the many people outside the room. Asked why the US is better at gaining market traction for its innovations than Germany, he attributes it partly to mindset, saying Germany is strong at innovation and products but less aggressive about go-to-market strategy and capturing market share.
Quotes
I like to build on things that exist and that get me motivated.
Björn Bringmann
We're maybe not that good at marketing them and maybe not that good at talking about them.
Björn Bringmann
Questions answered in this talk
How does Germany rank globally on AI adoption and innovation?
According to Björn Bringmann at Rise of AI 2023, Germany ranks 8th globally in an innovation index, 9th on a Global AI Index of over 60 countries, and third of 13 countries in Deloitte's AI maturity survey, with 42% of surveyed German executives classified as top-performing AI 'Transformers.'
Does Europe build the machines used to make advanced microchips?
According to Björn Bringmann at Rise of AI 2023, the machines needed to produce the smallest, most efficient microchips are built in Europe by companies including the Dutch firm ASML together with Zeiss and Trumpf, even though the chips themselves are largely manufactured elsewhere.
What free resources exist to help people understand AI?
According to Björn Bringmann at Rise of AI 2023, Elements of AI, a free online course from the University of Helsinki, has been translated into multiple languages and is aimed at helping the general public understand AI.