GERMANY Z Sa ae Facts. Figures. ‘BESTlomaton ad communicators echnogy a Nerh Rhine Wests at: sa September 2018 Information and communications technology in North Rhine-Westphalia Facts & figures In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), information and communications technologies (ICT) are diving the digital transformation ofthe entre economy. Ths is where entrepreneurs, researchers and investors find the ICT know-how to help shape the development of Industry 40, With its innovations, the NRW's ICT sector pro- Vides new opportunities fr value creation and employment and is itself an eco nomic heavyweight. No other federal state has such a high density of companies in this sector, ranging from medium-sized IT companies to software star-ups and telecommunications giants ‘The nearly 28,700 ICT companies in the state employ more than 215,400 people and generate sales of 103 billon euros (2016). This corresponds to ‘almost 15 4 percent of NRW's gross domestic product. Te IT sector ‘alone, with over 21,400 companies and almost 183,000 employees, has ‘sales of aver 46 billan euros. ‘The state's IT companies include international market leaders such as Atos, Com- putacenter, eligence or Materna, NRW is as the top telecommunicationsindus- tty location in Germany. Four big players the telecoms industry ~ Deutsche Tele- kom, Eriesson, Huawei Technologies and Vodafone — are based along the Rhine. In 2016, the telecoms sector in NRW generated more than 54 billon euros in sal with a workforee of over 32,000 employees. In order to ensure that the state remains a competitive location in the future, the Integration of ICT and iteligent products a8 well as production and service pro- ‘cesses is being promoted - "Cyber Physical Systems” (CPS). Through the coupling of information and communication technologies as well as embedded systems in CPS, hitherto separate industries, disciplines and social areas are nat: worked with each other. ‘The most important technologies curently being discussed and promoted world- Wide — and also in NRW ~ are artfcaliteligence (Al), the next mobile commu- ications standard 5G, IT securty technologies and biock chain. + Artificial intelligence technologies are said to have considerable growth potential: MeKinsey forecasts an inorease in Germany's gross domestic produet of up te four percent by 2030 — approx. 0.25 percentage points of ton bilion euros per year. The strong NRW's industries and fields of appl- cation Industry 4.0, Smart Energy, autonomous driving and Smart Health can beneft greatly from this. This goal for NRW to occupy a leading posi- tion in global competition as a research and business location. To this end,lomaton ad communicators echnogy a Nerh Rhine Wests at: sa September 2018 the state government has been funding 2 "Competence Network for Art- ficial Intelligence” since September 2018. In adeition, in 2018 the Federal Government established one ofa total of four Al competence centers in NRW: The "Competence Center Machine Learning Rhine-Ruhr - MLOR" ie characteristic of cutting-edge research in NRW, promotes young talent and strengthens technology transfer among ‘companies. “The fith generation of mobile communications (5) is bringing about a par= ‘adigm shift: By significantly inereasing the speed of data transmission to up to 10,000 MBitsis wth significantly lower energy consumption, very low le tency times and the possibility of processing significantly more network sub- seribers, considerable new potential is arising not ony forthe telecommuni- cations industry, but als for almost all branches of industry. For the year 2035, 5G is attributed a leverage of 12.3 trilion US dollars and the global 5G value chain is expected to create 22 milion jobs with 3.5 tilion US dol- lars, The economic and industrial structure in NRW offers great potential for the use of 5G technologies, especial in the area of Industry 4.0. In addition to research institutions, the companies EON SE, Deutsche Telekom with the 5G House in Bonn, Vodafone GmbH with a 5G Lab in Dusseldorf and Ericsson with its Eurolabs are addressing the topic in very concrote terms in NRW. The °5G Mobility Lab" was opened at the Aldenhoven Tasting Center in September 2017 «NRW is one of the hotspots for IT security in Germany. Curently, around "700 scientists are working at 20 research intiutions and universities inthe field of IT security. NRW-wide there are more than 400 IT security compa- nies, including both big players and numerous SMEs. ‘The most important research institutions are the Horst Gortz Institute for IT ‘Security (HGI) of the Ruhr University which is recognized throughout Eu rope, the "Casa" research association atthe Ruhr University Bochum and the ifs Institute for Internet Security ofthe Westphalian University of Applied ‘Sciences. In 2018 the decision was made to establish a new Max Planck In- stitute for Cyber Security and Privacy in Bochum. + With block chain technology, data can be stored and transmitted securely and traceably. By 2027, a total often percent ofthe world's gross domestic products could be processed via a block chain, In the course of the publication of ts Digital Strategy 2018, the state govern- ment of NRW presented the plan to establish a block chain institute in NRW in order to support the economy and the public sector inthe implementation cof future technologies.