Transcript
3:54 >> Yeah, look at that. Hey, yo. Yeah, look at That's a nice thing to do.
4:41 Yeah, okay. I know.
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11:09 >> >> Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. And a very warm welcome. My name is Ellen Franknecht and I'm delighted to guide you through what promises to be not only a special, but a truly spectacular night. In just a moment, your host, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, will welcome you personally.
11:43 But first, let's take a look where a journey can take you once you arrive in this wonderful country. >> >> I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid you cannot touch her.
13:10 >> >> Dear colleagues from the German government and our parliament, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Germany and welcome to Berlin and welcome to the first Invest in Germany Summit.
15:01 >> >> I'm really honored to welcome such a distinguished group of globally accomplished industry leaders to our country. And as you all might know, for the first time, Germany is hosting an investors conference of this kind. In this sense, a powerful message. Germany is open for investment. Germany is open for business.
15:32 And Germany is ready to grow at a faster pace. We want to work with you to usher in a new era of investment, capital mobilization, and economic growth in Germany. Drawing on the expertise, ambition, and entrepreneurial spirit of the world's leading investors and innovators. We want to build the next chapter of Germany's economic success together with you.
16:09 I'm also delighted to welcome my Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy, Katharina Reiche. Warm welcome, Katharina. >> >> As well as my representative for investments in Germany, Martin Blessing. Welcome, Martin. >> >> Thank you. Thank you for putting together and hosting this most impressive event in this impressive building.
16:43 A warm welcome also to the many representatives of our 16 federal states. Thank you for joining. And finally, it's a great pleasure to see so many of our German industry and business leaders gathered in this room representing the vitality, diversity, and depth of our economy. I would like to thank all of you for being here tonight. Thank you for joining. >> >> Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are meeting here in times of fundamental changes.
17:22 I personally have the doubtful privilege of being able to look back quite a few decades, like others among you here in this room. And of course, every decade was characterized by its own challenges. Each period felt special, felt precarious, challenging, and promising in its own way. However, the times we are in today feel different, and they are different.
17:54 We are in the midst of a fundamental economic and technological transformation fueled by exponential progress in artificial intelligence. At the same time, we are facing the strongest economic and geopolitical headwinds in generations. Wars in the Middle East are at risk of destabilizing the entire region region and putting global energy supplies under severe pressure.
18:27 Russia and its allies, from North Korea to Iran, are attacking not only Ukraine, but even more aggressively, the most precious accomplishments of the post-World War II era. Our fundamental values of human rights, our democracy, our liberty, and the rule of law. Ladies and gentlemen, the good news is we know what we have to do. We know how we can and have to respond.
19:00 We have to team up with our partners, and we have to build on our strengths. We have to invest in our world-leading innovation ecosystem, invest systematically in scaling up our productive capacities in sectors of strategic importance, invest in rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure and our defense capabilities. And we have to respond by strengthening the EU and our strategic partnerships around the world.
19:32 Now, ladies and gentlemen, we also know this. These are generational challenges to which we must respond with a generational effort. And that is what we are doing. That is what this summit is about. Germany is embarking on the biggest modernization drive in its recent history. In the coming years, we are, on top of our annual efforts, channeling half a billion euro into rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure, as well as into green energy and climate initiatives.
20:13 And we will commit over 500 mil billion euro by the end of the decade to strengthen our defensive capacities and modernize our military infrastructure. We are driving forward EU economic integration to fully unleash the potential of one of the largest integrated markets in the world. We are doubling down our diplomatic efforts to deepen our ties and trading relationships with allies around the globe.
20:46 And we are complementing all this with structural reforms at European and national level, reducing regulatory burdens across industries, modernizing and digitizing our administration system, as well as updating our welfare system from healthcare to pension schemes. This summit is about inviting you to joining us in our modernization drive. Tomorrow, we will have the opportunity to go into greater detail about where we stand with our economy, about our goals, and what policy measures we are taking to achieve them.
21:28 We want to showcase and discuss investment opportunities with you. And above all, to engage in as many individual conversations as possible. Because this event is first and foremost about dialogue. Against the backdrop of the challenges I sketched out just now, our aim is to send a message to you and our partners worldwide loud and clear. We are open for business and partnerships.
21:59 We welcome foreign companies and investment. We are not about zero-sum thinking. We believe in multilateralism, international trade, and open markets. And above all, you can continue to count on us as a stable, reliable partner that stays true to those values. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the challenges ahead are not small, neither here nor globally. But, as one of the largest and most advanced economies of the world, situated in the world's largest market, the European Union, we are coming from a position of strength.
22:43 And I believe that the best way to rise to the occasion is together, based on close cooperation between like-minded partners, building on and pooling our mutual strength and expertise. In that spirit, I'm very much looking forward to this summit, to hopefully getting to know many of you into starting to shape our future together. Thank you again and warm welcome to Berlin again.
23:13 >> >> Thank you Chancellor for this welcoming address. You may already take a seat on the right-hand side. >> >> It is now my pleasure to introduce to you someone who you can already see, someone very special, one of the most influential figures in tech.
23:47 He has co-founded Nvidia in 1993, led it ever since, built it into the most valuable company in the world last time I checked, right? More than 5 trillion, not billion, trillion US dollars. And along the way, he has earned a reputation as a kind of rockstar of tech, not only because of his trademark and leather jacket, but because wherever he goes, crowds gather and waiting for an autograph or a selfie. We might just be so lucky tonight, Mr. Chancellor.
24:18 >> >> And I do hope you don't take this as a prompt. Don't rush the stage, but please give a very warm welcome to Jensen Huang. Welcome to Germany. >> >> I can see you're already getting comfortable for our fireside chat. >> Also also a bartender. >> Well, Chancellor, if you could swap jobs with Jensen for just a day, what would you do first, you think?
24:58 >> Oh, that's a great idea. To swap the jobs. Would you like to go there? >> No. >> Well. >> >> Thank you. >> I I give you my answer. I rather would put my leather jacket on. I would take a flight to Berlin. I would like to see the German Chancellor. And I would tell him I'm ready to invest. >> >> Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. >> I think you could have arranged a meeting.
25:30 >> >> No nobody has invested more in Germany. >> Thank you for that. We are really grateful. Thank you for doing this and this is the great signal for our country. Thank you. >> thank you. You know Nvidia story and Germany story played a very large role. In fact, in the year 2000 Nvidia was a consumer oriented technology. We were only building for PC gaming. And it was a company in Germany, Elsa, that partners that partnership led us into workstations, would lead us into all of the car companies.
26:06 And today we work with the car companies from styling, design, engineering, simulation, manufacturing all the way out to the cars. It was in 2005 that Audi brought us into the car industry, inside the car. And it was a 2023 Was it 2023? 2020. yeah, 2020 that Ola and I established a partnership to build autonomous vehicles. And so Germany and Nvidia has been very close for a long time.
26:36 >> Chancellor, I think I already heard that you wouldn't like to swap jobs. So I won't even get there asking you what you would do as a Chancellor. We let you be you for now and I suspect you can already picture things that we might not even imagine yet. So take us into an engineering office or a factory of the future. What do you see? What is it going to look like? >> that's interesting. in fact, the factory every single company in the future will have two factories.
27:08 The factory that is real and the factory that is digital. And the factory that is digital will be so real, it might as be real. If it manifests itself when you create the digital twin of your company, of your car company, that digital twin might as well be real. And so, in the future, I believe that most people here in Germany will mostly work inside a digital twin of their company. They will build digital cars. Those cars will have digital brains.
27:41 The manufacturing, the factories will have digital, of course, artificial intelligence robots building inside a robotic factory, building cars that will be robotic. And everything will be completely software driven. Everything will be completely AI driven. So, every company will build two things. They will build brains and the brains that go into the products that they that they ship. And so, >> Fascinating. >> Yeah, it's going to be cool. >> Jensen, of course, the ambition is to bring AI into everyday use across German industry from large manufacturers, Mittelstand, to also smaller firms.
28:20 Could you perhaps share a few concrete examples of how you and the German government are ensuring that this widespread deployment is actually taking place? >> Sure. First of all, I would like to say that I'm really impressed what Nvidia and German companies are already doing in this country. Ola Källenius just handed out a model from the new S-Class of Mercedes to me promising that this car will be autonomous driving in Germany by the end of this year. Safest and the most autonomous. So, this is happening in Germany.
29:04 So, we are in the government, we are fully committed to be one of the most advanced places in the world, not just in the European Union, but in the world to work with AI to integrate AI into our industry. And one of the biggest, if not the biggest, advantage we have in Germany is our so-called Mittelstand. And I'm very happy to see that we are having here tonight many smaller and medium-sized companies from Germany.
29:36 Please open your doors for AI to make use of your data. This is so decisive for the German future. This is a real secret and a real advantage for Germany to use, to make use of all the data which are already available in our companies. And if we could combine this AI with companies like yours, and our companies in Germany, the big ones, but also so-called Mittelstand.
30:12 I'm really optimistic that we will be one of the leading, if not the leading, country in the world in terms of spread AI for all the companies of our manufacturers, machinery, automotive industry, supplies of automotive industry. I think this is a great opportunity and I'm decided to meet that. >> Yeah, you're absolutely right. >> >> So So, first of all, the data of Germany is part of your natural resources. It belongs to the nation.
30:54 The data of your the the digital experience, or otherwise known as data, the data of your country is your culture, your values, your knowledge, your experience. It's your natural resource. It belongs to the nation. And you're absolutely right that you should import the technology to harvest that data and turn it into your national intelligence, but you should not export your culture, export your values, export your knowledge, export your history, and then import German intelligence back.
31:36 Makes no sense. So, that's number one. And so, you you got it. You you have every You're going to, of course, use the best AI technology available in the world and AI services in the world, but you have every capability to build your own AI. So, that's number one. The second is the next wave of AI is physical AI. This is where AI interacts with the physical world. Robotics, manufacturing, cars, heavy industry.
32:08 That will never be replaced by digital technology. The work that you know belongs that knowledge belongs to you. The expertise of your domain, that belongs to you. Artificial general intelligence will never replace domain expertise. You could be as smart of a general intelligence as you want. You will never be as smart as somebody who is very, very specialized in a particular field of electromechanical technology.
32:48 It cannot be replaced. And so, AI can only augment your capability. It will not replace your capability. So, take advantage of the technology. It's a new instrument. >> >> As some of these advantages, Jensen, we have on the one hand decades of industrial data. We have very skilled labor, if you like. We have the engineering expertise.
33:18 So, this certainly as you seem to point out speaks for a lot of advantages for Germany. You have a global perspective. However, there are other countries that also have strengths that also like to take advantage of their strengths. You talk to so many governments across the globe, to so many companies across the world. If you take this global perspective, how is Germany braced for this sort of next race in AI?
33:49 >> As you know, the last major industrial revolution was electrification before the one I'll I'll describe. Electrification resulted in really three geographical leaders. Germany, United States, Japan. For the last 50 years, because of the current industrial revolution, which is computing and digital technology, United States has largely exported its heavy manufacturing, its building, its craft really to China. So, now the world has three again.
34:36 But it's Germany, Japan, and China. The advantage that China has is that they came into their industrial revolution, if you will, their economic transformation happened during precisely the time of the computer industry. They are quite computerized. China is probably the only nation today that is deep in manufacturing and deep in computer science.
35:06 And very comfortable in both. Well, the good news is there's a complete reset. The last 50 years was about software programming. United States is obviously world-class. But there's a new era now. The computer programs itself. You just have to show the computer what you want. Computer programming all of the advantages of the last generation has now been accrued into artificial intelligence.
35:42 There's a complete reset. All the digital technology in the world will not replace electromechanical physical technology. Electrons will never replace atoms. And that's an advantage that you have. The work you know, the domain expertise you have, the craft that is here, it will remain here. But you have to take advantage of this new technology. This This industrial revolution is so mighty, is so powerful, you don't have another chance. Because you always >> Yeah.
36:24 >> >> Whether we have another chance or not, we should always assume we don't. >> Mhm. >> This transition is so important. You should combine your deep skills, your deep expertise in the physical products, in the electromechanical products. >> Mhm. >> And combine it with artificial intelligence. I would not be surprised if currently most of the Mittelstands their challenges are reduction in labor because people are getting old.
37:00 >> Mhm. >> The craft of that is captured in the knowledge, the skills of the people are still are starting to get older and older every generation. Take advantage of artificial intelligence. Let them codify. Let them program. Let them teach this artificial intelligence and keep it here in Germany. >> Right. >> And let it re-engineer the Chancellor's words. Chancellor's words, re-engineer Germany. >> Mhm. >> This is your chance to do it.
37:32 >> Well, >> >> I think it's become obvious prerequisites to scale industrial AI in Germany are here and they are very promising and the opportunities related to it are impressive. It will be key, of course, Chancellor to bridge the gap between innovation and implementation in factories and in value chains. Is a cooperation with Nvidia a part of the plan to do so?
38:06 >> Yeah, sure. And this is already happening. And I would like to say that I'm extremely grateful about what we have just heard from this this business leader of the world in terms of AI. So, you are giving me and hopefully us a great optimism about our business model in Germany. And you might know that I'm always insisting that we have to remain a country with manufacturing.
38:40 And we should never give up that. And now we are seeing a great opportunity in combining our experiences with manufacturing and AI. So, if we are successful in bringing these two aspects and parts of the business of the future together, I'm really very optimistic that Germany can be one of the most successful economies in the world because we are already we are still the third biggest economy in the world. So, thank you for for for telling us what the opportunity is and comparing us with others. And I believe and I I I I share your view that the Americans made a big mistake to export their manufacturing.
39:27 And now they are faced with a very small except successful but very small based industry. And this is our advantage to have this broader access and broader approach to the future of our industry. >> And let me I'm going to I'm a large American company and and we have incredible partnerships here in Germany for good reason. It's good for us. It's good for us. Our partnership with Audi led to our partnership with Mercedes. Our partnership with Mercedes led to our investment in robotics which led to our partnership with Agile Robots. We just made an investment in them. We made investment Avilio's made an investment in Murillo made an investment in Reflex Aerospace.
40:17 last year we made an investment in Black Forest Labs. here in Germany, you have deep science and technology and deep science and math, which are the fundamentals for manufacturing, for the deep sciences, for artificial intelligence. And so, there's so much there's so much technical expertise and there's so much deep science and deep math. The one thing that you said also is that you believed in a policy of advancing and encouraging AI startups or startups in general. I think that's fantastic.
40:50 One of the things that I really love about the United States, of course, is that we constantly reinvigorate, we constantly reinvent ourselves. And the way we do that is through all the entrepreneurs. And so, one of the things that I really love to see, we've invested tremendously in Germany. In the last year, we've invested almost a billion dollars. This week, we're investing in four new companies. And so, in in a lot of ways, we are one of the largest VCs in Germany because I believe in Germany.
41:20 And >> >> And so, for all of the other venture capitalists, you better hurry because otherwise I'm going to take all the good deals. And I'm going to be rich. And so, And so, the important thing is is that the thing I want to recognize is that the science and technology capability of Germany is just second to none. We have a thousand employees here. We have a fantastic office here in Berlin. Some of the fundamental inventions of our companies came from our office here in Berlin in Germany. And so, this is you want to invest here.
41:58 Incredible people. >> May I ask a question? Could you give us an advice on regulation? We are having a very strong debate in Brussels on the European level compared to the US. What is the best way to regulate this industry or this new technology? I think we agree on no regulation is not the right answer. Too tight regulation is not the right answer, either. But what is from your view the right answer in terms of keeping the potential damage in mind that this could happen and have already happened. So, what is your advice on on regulation? What can we do better than others?
42:45 >> Safety is paramount. Yeah. There is no future for this industry without safe products. Just as there's no future in autonomous vehicles if the vehicles are not safe. And so, it is not a choice. You don't choose between safety and capability. They are one. They have to go together. And so, three pillars. The first is you can't regulate if there's no technology. So, the technology industry must Yeah.
43:20 The technology industry must invent the technology for safety. Just as Ola and I had to invent the technology and we have the safest autonomous vehicle in the car in the world. We had to invent the technology that allows you to achieve the functionality you want to see, but also the guarantee of functional safety and active safety we want to we want to deliver. And so, that requires invention of technology. That's the first pillar. But that's something that Germany is incredibly good at. Your science, your math, your technology is incredibly good. You have to invent the technology of safety. Safety is not hopes and dreams. Safety is technology and engineering.
44:02 Second, the companies need to have best practices. Sometimes the the young companies, they're still trying to grow up and they make maybe more mistakes than they should. we need to make sure that companies make deliver on the best practices, best methods, and even in safety as many of the people in the audience, there probably many in the automotive industry, you know that safety is deep methodology, deep best practices, deep engineering.
44:33 And that methodology has to be adhered to. And then lastly, there's industrial and government regulations. If it turns out that And remember, AI is two things. Just as the internet, regulating the internet is hard, but regulating internet applications is not so hard. We should be regulating the applications right away. And so, if there are AI technologies that you see that's being applied to a new type of product that is not covered by the existing regulatory bodies, they have to they have to evaluate as soon as possible and make sure that they their regulation includes AI. And so, I would I And I I think I've also heard you say that you want to find that balance between innovation and regulation.
45:24 There's nothing to regulate if the industry doesn't thrive. You want the German AI industry to thrive as well as do it safely, responsibly. So, I think I think the balance is really important to do. And so, I think that the answer is we know there's technology we can invent and deploy in order to have AI safety. We know that there are best practices that we can adhere to as companies and industries. And then in addition to that, if necessary, we'll make sure we regulate.
45:55 >> Mhm. Just briefly, Chancellor, what would be your answer to the same question? Maybe very briefly. >> Yeah, no, thank you. This was extremely helpful because we we are talking about that on the European level. We are talking that on the national level and my my approach is that we at least need the European level and better we had a global level of regulation and of safety for this fantastic new technology. So, this is my personal view, but we are still far from that because we are different having a different approach between the Americans and the Europeans, but we are working on that and most in this room know that I was successful to get the AI regulation out of the normal regulation of AI in the European Union and to have a special regulation for the machinery industry in Germany and not part being part of the general AI limitation and regulation.
46:50 So, this was a big achievement which we had in Europe. >> a chance. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Give this industry a chance to >> Yeah. >> And just finally, very very briefly, Chancellor, if Jensen came back in a year's time, which we very much hope, what would you hope for him to see? >> I would like to see him regularly, let's say at least once a year and discussing progresses we made and seeing a guy sitting in my office and being extremely happy about the German investment place.
47:27 >> Nothing would give me more joy than to see all of my investments in Germany turn into gold. Okay? So, I have every I have every belief >> >> and I'm very very happy to hear your personal support the startup ecosystem. I'm very happy to hear that that there are regulations involved to make it possible for the pension funds and the and the risk capital the risk capital to come into Germany. And then and then I'm I'm also I'm also super excited to hear about all of the AI startups and the startups that have happened in the last couple of years.
48:08 >> Half of the startups in Germany being founded in the last 2 years is AI. >> Yeah, that's terrific. That's yeah. >> That's >> Who knows? Maybe you are going to ask them for some autographs next year. You might want to bring a pen when you come. Once they have their breakthroughs, some of them I understand were your interns in the past and now they run their own companies. It's been a pleasure to have you here.
48:34 Thank you to both of you. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a >> Thank you. >> an applause to Chancellor Scholz and Jensen Huang. >> >> What an upbeat promising start. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> >> Well, ladies and gentlemen, you may now notice a little movement, but this evening is of course far from over.
49:07 Members of the press are about to leave us now. This may take a couple of minutes. But I'm going to use this time >> Mhm.
53:44 >> Mhm.
55:39 >> Mhm.
56:54 >> Mhm.