Berlin, March 3, 2025. Whether chips, smartphones, software or IT services: Almost all companies in Germany (96 per cent) source digital technologies or services from abroad. The dependency is high: 90 per cent of companies that source digital technologies or services from abroad cannot do without them and see themselves as dependent on these imports. The most important countries and regions of origin for digital imports are the EU, China and the USA. What trust do companies in Germany place in their suppliers in light of current geopolitical tensions? What impact will Donald Trump’s presidency have? Which technologies are the most dependent and what measures is the business community demanding from politicians to strengthen digital sovereignty in Germany? Answers to these and other questions can be found in the study report ‘Digital Sovereignty’, which the digital association Bitkom is publishing here today, Monday.
The report marks the start of a new series of publications in which Bitkom studies will be regularly reviewed and summarised from now on. ‘Every year, Bitkom produces more than 50 studies on around 80 subject areas, which are conducted according to scientific criteria in terms of representativeness, informative value and objectivity. We want to make the results more accessible to the interested public and the scientific community in future,’ says Bitkom President Dr Ralf Wintergerst. In future, the study reports will supplement Bitkom’s existing instruments and benchmarks on the status of digitalisation, including the Digital Policy Monitor, the Bitkom Country Index, the Smart City Index and the Bitkom-ifo Digital Index. Wintergerst: ‘Around 17,000 digital experts are involved in Bitkom and form Europe’s largest digitalisation think tank. We want to make this expertise more accessible in future.’ In the middle of the year, Bitkom will also make its internal data pool publicly accessible under the title ‘Bitkom Dataverse’.
The next Bitkom study report will be published in a fortnight and summarises the attitudes of the German electorate towards the 2025 federal elections.
Further information and digital sovereignty
(https://www.bitkom.org/Studienberichte/2025/Digitale-Souveraenitaet)