Germany signs industrial AI declaration with NVIDIA as Huang backs four German startups

On October 19, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang sat down in the hall of Kraftwerk, a former power station in Berlin, to work through Germany's AI roadmap — with industrial applications at the center of the conversation.

Earlier that day, as part of the Invest in Germany Summit, Merz, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space signed a Joint Declaration of Intent with NVIDIA, according to the company's blog. The declaration sets out a joint initiative to advance cutting-edge AI models for physical AI.

The agreement also formalizes and expands NVIDIA's collaboration with the federal government and its Industry 4.0 Platform, which gathers representatives from politics, industry, research and trade associations. Berlin's stated goal, quoted in the post, is to “systematically bring industrial AI into widespread use and to establish a state-of-the-art industrial AI ecosystem in Europe.”

Merz framed the ambition in national terms, saying Germany is “fully committed to be one of the most advanced places in the world” for working with AI and integrating it into industry. He addressed the Mittelstand — Germany's small and medium-sized manufacturers — directly: “Please open your doors for AI to make use of your data.” Huang answered that such knowledge “belongs to you” and that AI “can only augment your capability, it will not replace your capability.”

Huang also announced planned investments in four German startups: Munich-based Agile Robots, which builds robotic arms and the Agile ONE humanoid for manufacturing, logistics and healthcare; Avelios Medical, also of Munich, which develops an AI-native hospital information system; Mirelo, which generates sound effects, speech and music for video; and Berlin-based Reflex Aerospace, whose satellites are designed for launch in about 12 months. The investments sit inside a nearly $10 billion NVIDIA commitment to Europe, after earlier backing for n8n, Neura Robotics and Black Forest Labs.

The same day, Siemens said it is partnering with NVIDIA on AI-driven autonomous factories and showed new AI solutions at its Erlangen plant, where fully virtual production ramp-up cuts engineering effort by up to 85% and agent-based production planning saves up to 20% in costs. NVIDIA researchers also used JUPITER, Europe's largest supercomputer at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, to run a 104-qubit simulation of a fault-tolerant quantum computer — the largest of its kind to date, according to the company.

The timing matters: the conversation came two days before Huang's GTC Berlin keynote on October 21. For an economy built on manufacturing and automotive engineering, tying physical AI to the government's Industry 4.0 Platform suggests the next phase of the AI race may be fought less in the cloud than on factory floors, in robots and inside digital twins.

What to watch next is whether the declaration turns into named projects and funding, whether Mittelstand companies actually open up their operational data, and whether Huang's Berlin keynote adds product and ecosystem specifics beyond the political framing.