Internet Governance: Foreign Policy and the Backbone of the Digital World

An open and global internet is in Germany's strategic interest and creates the conditions for societal exchange and economic development around the world. Yet power-political issues, particularly between the United States and China, are causing cracks to appear deep in its technical foundations; voices warning of a fragmenting internet are growing louder. The new electoral term in Germany comes at a key moment, with the World Summit on the Information Society due to be held in 2025. The next German government should strengthen multi-stakeholder institutions that support the technical development of the internet, and go beyond existing partnerships to forge a broad consensus in the Global South in support of an open and global internet

Germany's Role in Europe's Digital Regulatory Power: Shaping the Global Technology Rule Book in the Service of Europe

Four elements help to map the strengths and, at times, the limits of German power in digital rule-making. First, Germany anticipates EU ­digital regulation and attempts to establish facts on the ground. Second, Germany has outsized influence in the formal stages of EU digital regulatory policy­making. Third, the EU, in turn, provides ­Germany with a launch pad for influencing worldwide regulatory norms. Fourth, a belated reawakening of the capacity of the German private sector and affiliated technical standard bodies to influence global technical standards is occurring

The Geopolitics of Digital Technology Innovation: Assessing Strengths and Challenges of Germany's Innovation Ecosystem

The COVID-era public and private investment influx into Germany’s digital technology R&D is reversing amid inflation, fiscal consolidation, and geopolitical pressures coming from the Zeitenwende. Germany's future in an EU that is among the top-tier technology powers requires a profound and rapid transition of the country's R&D strengths into data-intensive, systems-centric areas of IoT and deep technology that are linked to the domestic manufacturing base. New policy approaches in three areas - money, markets, and minds - are needed. New technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced material science, biotech, and quantum computing tend to have broad general-purpose applications. But uncoordinated funding vehicles, universities' civil clauses, and restrictive visa and onboarding guidelines for skilled foreign workers slow innovation in these sectors and hamper German techno-geopolitical competitiveness

Technology and Industrial Policy in an Age of Systemic Competition: Safeguarding Germany's Technology Stack and Innovation Industrial Strength

As one of the world's most globalized economies, Germany is confronting a challenging international environment characterized by aggressive subsidies, a global race for control of key technologies such as advanced chips, and vulnerable supply chains for critical components. Increased energy costs - induced by Russia's war on Ukraine - are also straining Germany's industrial model. Germany's industrial economy is simultaneously undergoing a fundamental transformation from precision-based engineering to systems-based manufactured products. With this shift, a competitive digital technology stack is becoming a key repository for future industrial competitiveness. Yet, the country struggles to capture value in fast-growing markets like that for cloud and edge infrastructure. It also faces risks from its exposure to untrustworthy technology vendors and potential geopolitical disruptions to fragile hardware supply chains

Germany's Global Technology Diplomacy: Strengthening Technology Alliances, Partnerships, and Norms-Setting Institutions

The fusion of technological, geopolitical, and ideological ambitions is straining internet governance discourses, cyber norms diplomacy, technical standard-setting, and the global connectivity infrastructure. The German government has made support for global, open, and secure digital connectivity a centerpiece of its foreign policy. However, it has yet to make the shaping of a corresponding international technology agenda a strategic policy priority. To shape a global technology order that reflects Germany's interests as a high-tech industrial economy and democratic society, the government should focus on realizing synergies with EU international digital policy, strengthening coordination with like-minded partners, and engaging with the Global South on an inclusive and democratic ­global digital agenda

Germany's Economic Security and Technology: Optimizing Export Control, Investment Screening and Market Access Instruments

Technological development and increasingly fraught US-China competition have geopolitical consequences for technology access. The erosion of post-Cold War multilateral dual-use technology export control regimes, such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, and investment and other control frameworks have led to national, EU, and ad hoc measures, such as the restrictions on Russian semiconductor access following the invasion of Ukraine

Internet Governance: Außenpolitik im Rückgrat der digitalen Welt

Ein offenes und globales Internet liegt in Deutschlands strategischem Interesse und schafft weltweit Voraussetzungen für gesellschaftliche Vernetzung und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung. Doch machtpolitische Risse, vor allem zwischen den USA und China, wirken bis tief in sein technisches Fundament hinein; es wird von einer Fragmentierung des Internets gesprochen. Mit Blick auf den 2025 stattfindenden Weltgipfel zur Informationsgesellschaft fällt diese Legislaturperiode in ein wichtiges Zeitfenster. Die nächste Bundesregierung sollte Multistakeholder-Institutionen stärken, die technische Weiterentwicklung des Internets fördern und über bestehende Partnerschaften hinaus im globalen Süden einen breiten Konsens für ein offenes und globales Internet vorantreiben

Ethical and Operational: Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, the German Military, and the Zeitenwende

Germany's future contribution to European and allied security depends on the Bundeswehr's ability to harness emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs) such as artificial intelligence, 5G/6G cellular network technology, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite connectivity, and quantum communications and computation. Even amidst Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Germany continues to be mired in siloed conceptual, institutional, and ethical thinking that results in disconnections between the military and the technology sector, and even between ­Germany and its allies. The Zeitenwende should catalyze not only a defense budgetary increase but a reconciliation between ethics and military requirements regarding EDTs if Germany is to look beyond immediate needs and ensure the Bundeswehr's future ­operational readiness

La lucha geopolítica por el liderazgo tecnológico

La guerra en Ucrania está catalizando la lucha por el liderazgo tecnológico mundial que va a definir la competencia estratégica de las próximas décadas

Technologie- und Industriepolitik im neuen Systemwettbewerb: Wie Deutschland seine technologischen Fähigkeiten und industrielle Stärke bewahren kann

Als eine der weltweit am stärksten globalisierten Volkswirtschaften steht Deutschland vor der Herausforderung, sich in einem umkämpften internationalen Marktumfeld zu positionieren, das geprägt ist von aggressiven Subventionsstrategien sowie einem globalen Wettlauf um die Kontrolle von Schlüsseltechnologien wie hochentwickelten Chips und fragilen Lieferketten für kritische Komponenten. Hinzu kommen die aufgrund des russischen Angriffskriegs gegen die Ukraine gestiegenen Energiepreise, die die deutsche Industrie zusätzlich belasten. Zugleich durchläuft Deutschlands Industriewirtschaft einen grundlegenden Wandel von hochpräziser Fertigung zu systembasierten industriellen Produkten. Im Zuge dieses Wandels wird der Zugang zu digitalen Spitzentechnologien zu einer wichtigen Grundlage für die künftige industrielle Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Landes. Dennoch tut sich Deutschland schwer damit, in schnell wachsenden Märkten wie denen für Cloud- und Edge-Infrastrukturen Wert zu schöpfen. Außerdem ist das Land Risiken ausgesetzt, die sich aus seiner Exposition gegenüber nicht vertrauenswürdigen Technologieanbietern sowie möglichen geopolitischen Spannungen in fragilen Hardware-Lieferketten ergeben