Image credits: (c) ARD 2019, all rights reserved

• DIGITAL SME member BITMi, the German federal association of ICT SMEs, was at the national Digital Summit 2019 in Dortmund

• The cloud network will reduce dependence on American providers and increase data availability for SMEs

• DIGITAL SME president Oliver Grün: “We welcome the idea of a European cloud network. Now we need quick implementation.”

The Digital Summit of the German Federal Government on digital platforms came to a close this Tuesday in Dortmund. Once more, the Federal Association of ICT SMEs (BITMi) was represented in the “Innovative Digitization of the Economy” platform of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy by President Oliver Grün. As part of the “Startups/SMEs” focus group, BITMi was involved in the development of a showcase entitled “Cooperative value creation for SMEs”. The goal was to demonstrate how small platforms can be useful for SMEs and their business processes.

At noon yesterday, the Federal Ministry of Economics presented the GAIA-X project at the Digital Summit. The aim of the project is a European networked, open data infrastructure that offers companies and authorities independence from large non-European corporations. The aim is to increase data availability for businesses—especially for SMEs—in order to better exploit emerging technologies, e.g. AI and IoT.

“The approach is right. Now we need quick implementation.”

DIGITAL SME welcomes this approach. At the last Digital Summit, president Grün emphasized: “We need concrete plans for the construction of data pools, which are also accessible to SMEs. Without this data, there can be no successful nationwide use of AI in Germany. ” After the presentation of the Federal Ministry of Economics yesterday, he praised the project but also calls for a marketable implementation: “The approach is right: merge networked data to create added value and prevent unauthorized access. Now, the project must be implemented quickly, ideally by the end of 2020. Above all, it must keep up with the cloud offerings of digital companies. One should constantly check whether the offer is accepted by the market and also have the courage to constantly and agilely improve the service portfolio.”

Finally, DIGITAL SME also welcomes the inclusive European approach of the project, which will be set up alongside several German ministries together with France and the support of various European business enterprises.