Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU) spoke at the opening of a Google AI center in Berlin Concerns that the growing dependence on US technology companies is endangering Germany’s digital sovereignty are rejected. “Digital sovereignty doesn’t mean that you do everything alone,” said Wildberger. You work “in partnerships at eye level”.
Bundled in the new Google AI Center on Berlin’s Museum Island the group Teams from Google DeepMind, Google Research and Google Cloud. The center is part of an investment program of over 5.5 billion euros with which Google wants to expand its infrastructure in Germany by 2029. This also includes a new data center in Dietzenbach and the expansion of the locations in Munich and Frankfurt.
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) described the center as a vote of confidence in the strength and future viability of the capital.
Cooperation with TU Munich and Helmholtz Munich
To accompany the opening, Google agreed to cooperate with the Technical University of Munich and the scientific institution Helmholtz Munich to develop AI applications in medical research. Helmholtz researcher Fabian Theis named the goal of accelerating the development of drugs: “Drug development still takes ten years, costs billions and then 90 percent of the clinical tests don’t work.”
For the economic justification, Google referred to an analysis commissioned by the employer-related German Economic Institute: Generative AI could generate additional gross value added of around 440 billion euros per year by 2034, it said.