German economy minister sees potential in industrial AI

Germany is unlikely to win the race to develop large language models but has a strong chance of becoming an international leader in industrial artificial intelligence (AI), Economy Minister Katherina Reiche has told dpa.

"We probably won't win the race for large language models. But when it comes to industrial AI - where machines, factories and production become smarter - we are very well positioned to play a leading role internationally," Reiche said.

Large language models are designed to understand human language and respond to questions or carry out tasks. ChatGPT is one prominent example.

Industrial AI, by contrast, aims to enable machines to operate more autonomously.

"When it comes to industrial data from highly complex production processes, Europe and Germany are among the strongest locations in the world," Reiche said.

She pointed to the European Union's AI legislation as one factor providing favourable conditions and said Klaus Müller, president of Germany's Federal Network Agency, had signalled that the regulator was committed to supporting such developments.

Reiche said companies were also keen to seize the opportunity.

"The depth of our industrial manufacturing and the data it generates are a real competitive advantage," she said.

"If we can use AI to create new value from this often unstructured data, that is where a major opportunity lies for Germany. We must not let that opportunity slip away."