Hamburg's Future in 2025: Will Innovation Prevail?

Hamburg Innovation Summit Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Record Attendence

On July 15, 2025, the Hamburg Innovation Summit (HHIS) marked its 10th anniversary with a grand event in the industrial halls of the Oberhafen district. The summit attracted over 3,000 attendees, nearly doubling the number from the previous year.

The event featured a variety of stages and discussions, spanning across approximately 1,800 square meters of Expo Area. Topics ranged from Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, and Novel Food, to Mobility & Urban Development, Industry 4.0, Climate and Energy, Advanced Materials, Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship, War of Talents, and Health & Lifestyle.

One of the highlights of the summit was the panel titled "From Migration to Innovation: Startup Successes in Hamburg", which showcased founders with a migration background. The Startup City Hamburg also presented this panel.

Another significant development was the announcement of the newly founded Startup Factory, named "Rex". This factory primarily supports the veterinary and pet care sectors, focusing on technology-driven veterinary practices and digital platforms for pet owners. The federal government has provided funding for Rex, with more than 50 million euros available for innovative Hamburg startups in the "Deep Tech" sector.

The focus of Rex is on green technologies and the development of new materials in connection with Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. However, the specifics of this focus were not discussed during the summit.

The Hamburg Fraunhofer Institutes also participated in the event, presenting their strategy for the first quantum computer in Hamburg and showcasing the COOKIE project, a KI-assisted solution for image-based damage recognition on empty containers.

Melanie Leonhard, Senator for Economics, Labor, and Innovation, stated that Hamburg is particularly advanced in the importance of innovation for people, especially in the health sector. This sentiment was echoed during the event, with the conclusion that Hamburg can innovate.

A non-representative trend monitor was used among summit participants to gauge the perception of Hamburg's innovation culture. Around 47% of respondents viewed the next five years' innovation prospects as rather positive, but challenges such as a pronounced fear of change, excessive bureaucracy, and lack of risk-taking were identified as major innovation barriers.

tecHHub Hamburg, a well-functioning network in the area of innovation, was not specifically mentioned in this year's summit, but it has been a positive example of such networks in the past.

Two DESY projects, the X-ray light source PETRA IV and the particle detector IceCube-Gen2, were recently classified as "research infrastructure of national importance" by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR). However, these projects were not mentioned during the summit.

In summary, the Hamburg Innovation Summit 2025 celebrated its 10th anniversary with record attendence, showcasing a wide range of discussions and announcements, including the launch of the new Startup Factory Rex and the strides made in quantum computing and AI-assisted solutions by the Hamburg Fraunhofer Institutes. Despite some challenges identified, the overall sentiment towards Hamburg's innovation prospects was positive.