Overview
- At the WELT KI Summit, political and business figures warned that overly strict European rules could stifle innovation, with Bundestag President Julia Klöckner urging a balanced approach to avoid both smothering progress and causing harm.
- Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger called for simplifying data-protection requirements to remove barriers for startups, echoing broader complaints that GDPR-related complexity hinders AI development.
- Bavaria’s Markus Söder pressed for a more optimistic strategy and greater funding for future technologies, arguing Germany must prioritize innovation-led growth over excessive controls.
- Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär said AI is a core technology in the government’s Hightech Agenda, citing Germany’s top-tier supercomputer in Jülich and plans to secure one of Europe’s planned AI data-center gigafactories.
- North Rhine-Westphalia’s Hendrik Wüst advocated easing consent restrictions on medical data use, while antitrust chief Andreas Mundt cautioned that AI infrastructure is concentrated with a few U.S. firms and criticized GDPR as burdensome for small businesses, as EU Council President António Costa urged global guardrails at the UN.