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Hanover 2025 trade fair review
Data-driven Industry – Shaping a New Era
Introduction
Data ecosystems, sovereignty, digital competitiveness, transformation in SMEs – the buzzwords in the numerous and intensive discussions and conversations at the recent Hannover Messe were big, because nothing less than the future viability of the industry is at stake. The urgency of taking appropriate measures was underlined by the panelists at the Leaders' Dialogue. Together with its stand partners, the Plattform industrie 4.0 presented the scenario of a digitalized industry with Manufacturing-X.
Data ecosystems are the topic of the moment. Eight of the projects currently in the Manufacturing-X funding program presented their thoughts on specific data ecosystems at the joint stand of Plattform Industrie 4.0, together with other data space initiatives.
The interest was broad and the response in Hanover was corresponding: representatives of SMEs were just as interested in the opportunity to participate in data ecosystems as delegations from Asia, Tunisia and Italy. The focus is particularly on quick and easy applicability as well as low entry barriers.
There is a consensus that the rapid integration of SMEs must also take place on a broad scale in order to anchor data ecosystems as central to the industry. At the Hannover Messe, a panel led by Next Level SME initiator Henrik Schunk discussed the current status of scaling, what hurdles still exist and how large-scale industry and SMEs should work closely together to overcome them in order to keep Germany's industry fit for the future.
Leaders' Dialogue
The future viability of Germany and Europe was also the focus of the Leaders' Dialogue, which traditionally takes place on the Tuesday of the trade fair. Top-class panels led by Federal Minister Dr. Robert Habeck, State Secretary Claudia Müller (Federal Ministry of Education and Research), Peter Leibinger (President BDI), Philipp Jennings (Deputy Minister of Science and Industry of Canada), Valentino Valentini (Deputy Minister of Enterprise, Italy), Tanja Rückert (Bosch), Cedrik Neike (Siemens), Dr. Christine Knackfuß-Nikolic (T-Systems), Bernd Wagner (Stackit/Schwarz Digits), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Hanselka (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft) and Dr. Yasser Jadidi (Aleph Alpha Research) discussed the digital competitiveness of Germany and Europe. It is necessary to change the prevailing risk aversion of the industry back into a courageous attitude through less regulation and decentralization. Now more than ever, it is about achieving digital sovereignty as an indispensable building block of a digitalized industry and its future competitiveness.
Industry representatives were unanimous in their assessment that the intensive political efforts for Manufacturing-X had already laid a decisive foundation stone here and that it was now important not to let up on activities.
Regulatory requirements as an opportunity?
A panel discussion on the Digital Product Passport (DPP) with the participation of Silke Obst (EU Commission) promoted the idea of seeing EU regulations as an opportunity for business.
The conclusion of the extremely lively discussion on the conference stage: the conceptual idea of the DPP is undisputed and its advantages are obvious. Ideally, the standards required for successful implementation should now be worked on together this year.
Discussion round on the Digital Product Passport (DPP) at Hannover Messe 2025
In addition, the working groups of the Plattform Industrie 4.0 once again enriched the conference stage at this year's Hannover Messe with numerous contributions and insights into their work: calculations on the monetary value contribution of data spaces, digital identities with the standard of eDIAS2.0, possible tensions between equipment suppliers, operators and regulators in the use of data spaces were just as much a topic as sustainable knowledge management in companies or the digital transformation of SMEs.
