Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#221

Post by fabianholzer » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:24 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #43

pasabagi wrote: post #36

I actually think Germany would be really good at digital infrastructure if they stopped being afraid of friend computer. Germany is immensely proud of its history of creating standards - there's literally a place in berlin called DIN Platz. Germany is also very proud, and rightly so, in its history of mathematical innovation. Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a w…

We actually have a rather recent government agency called "DigitalHub" for that, too, which has been quite successful at pushing open standards and open source. Then there's https://zendis.de/#produkte whose sole purpose is to replace non-EU closed-source software, for example by replacing Windows + Office with Linux and the custom desktop software suite https://opendesk.eu/

Yes, and zendis in its very German ways only hires folks who commute to Bochum at least three times a week. Home office? Da könnte ja jeder kommen...

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#222

Post by timka » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:28 AM UTC

Looks like a last-ditch effort to salvage its crumbling technological sovereignty amid the EU's systemic crisis. Even if they invent something, production will happen in China or the US.

Germany wants to preserve Airbus and stay relevant in European space programs, but without cheap energy and raw materials this is a pipe dream. Quantum computing/hydrogen is theoretically promising, but they're already behind China and the US. Trying to catch up to Russia in drones and EW, but without energy independence or microelectronics it won't work.

Without Russian gas or nuclear power, high-tech manufacturing is unprofitable. Germany's best engineers are already in Shanghai and Silicon Valley. Russia/China/the US are sprinting ahead in hypersonics, AI, and 6G, while Germany is just forming a ministry.

Germany's move isn't a breakthrough, it's desperation. They're trying to save face, but they lack energy for advanced tech w/o Russia, have no military shield w/o the US, can’t manufacture at scale w/o China.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#223

Post by ashoeafoot » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:33 AM UTC

Lets be honest for once -germany is deeply risk averse and conservative. Its leaders can try to cast that "we wamt that california culture" spell a million times and out hops another wirecard. You can not graft innovation cultures to conservation cultures . You would need to change the conservation culture at thr upbringing roots, by highlighting how pure conservation gets you into wars and other problems. By rewarding characters that want to go on a adventure .You can not tell the guy who wants to jump a mammoth with a pointy stick, that this is "toxic masculinity" and "the outstanding nail gets hammered" in kindergarden and open a ministry for elephant steak.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#224

Post by fxtentacle » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

w-m wrote: post #119

fxtentacle wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraunhofer is (by now) only financed 30% through tax money and 70% comes from the royalties on their past developments like MP3 and H264 and H265 and MPEG-H. Anyway, Fraunhofer gets recurring tax funding. What voize got is a one-off research grant to a group of companies: - voize - Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (a medical university) - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH, Berlin (a gove…

That’s not quite right for Fraunhofer: The financing model is also heavily dependent on research grants. The base funding is indeed around 30%. But another 40% are from publicly funded research projects. The last 30% are from research contracted by industry. In 2023, license fee revenue was €157M / €2991M, so roughly 5% of total contract research volume. https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/about-fraunhofer/profile-struct...

Thanks! Today I learned... :)

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#225

Post by justlikereddit » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:44 AM UTC

And what super high tech background will the ministers have?

>Friend of The Merkler

>Protested nuclear energy

>Invited a million illiterates to an all-inclusive life in Germany, none who ever had an encounter with the technology of literacy

And so forth.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#226

Post by HellDunkel » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:50 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #207

nisa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German I would love to contradict this but I tend to agree. Bureaucracy isn't such a big deal in my experience - might be different depending what area you are working in - but the leadership culture regarding software is the cause of most of the misery I've seen and I've been involved with. Cheap as in no investments in people or software quality. Salaries are also not competitive in a lot of places. Disregard…

> Salaries are also not competitive in a lot of places. This implies there are other companies in the same city/region that pay better. I doubt it. From what I have seen, most German software devs are paid horribly, come to HN complain about it, then proceed to do nothing. The solution is to move to a place that pays higher salaries, like Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, or another country. Or get a 100% remote job.

Or move on from software dev- or not even code a single line and jump to „architect“ or some other bs position straight out of university.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#227

Post by illiac786 » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:53 AM UTC

okr wrote: post #151

fxtentacle wrote: post #26

The upside is that this will actually provide lots of research funding to small companies. Think of it like the seed round from a VC, but instead of investing into new companies, they try to strategically invest into existing companies to boost future tax revenue. It'll probably be very German, meaning overly bureaucratic. But the basic idea of financing R&D in small companies to grow them more competitive seems legi…

I dont want the govt to fund any research funding. As a tax payer i did not vote this. I want to decide who i fund or not. It just means, my taxes will not go down. :/

That does not scale. We cannot ask every single citizen about every single decision. You want to decide on each funding. The next will want to decide on every tax law change. Government decides, and if majority of population thinks they’re doing a shit job and someone else can do a less shot job they get replaced after a couple of years. Otherwise it’s micromanagement hell.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#228

Post by xenospn » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 8:55 AM UTC

chme wrote: post #186

DataDaoDe wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has tons of potential, but Germany is one of the most risk averse countries on the planet (see Uncertainty Avoidance Cultures)[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance ]. This makes it amazing at building high quality industrial products, taking innovation done elsewhere and refining and polishing it, slowly over many years - building standards as you say. However, it doesn't help much in the inno…

> There is also a massive union culture, which provides Germans with a great quality of life, but again, that's something probably negatively correlated to innovation. Hmm... So if people struggle in life and have live from hand to mouth in multiple jobs to support their family and loved ones, they are more innovative?

A quick trip to sub-Saharan Africa will prove this is both true and untrue.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#229

Post by jsemrau » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 9:04 AM UTC

jll29 wrote: post #218

jsemrau wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applying for a grant in the European Commission is a labyrinth of different websites each with their own need to register. Grant Specs are largely in PDFs or Word Documents that are attached to the call. And it takes at least 6-9 months from open to decision. I have applied to about 20 grants throughout 2024 and haven't heard anything back from a single one yet.

EC scientific expert here (occasionally judging FP7/8/Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe grants in multiple areas including AI). I also authored some bigger proposals, one rejected (score: 13/15) and one funded. It is perhaps not a good idea to apply to that many in such a short time frame, unless you have nothing else to do: the individual efforts need to be really excellent to succeed, so focus should be on quality rather…

Thank you for your insightful reply. I am also registered as an Expert to the EC. I fully agree with you that completing all requirements in a 40-pager is hard. Which I think is exactly my point. It's competitive (that's good) and time-consuming. But I also believe grant applications are a muscle a startup should have when they want to do business with the government. In SpacecTech, Defense, and AI (my areas) this is largely unavoidable.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#230

Post by xenospn » Sat, Apr 12, 2025, 9:06 AM UTC

HellDunkel wrote: post #226

throwaway2037 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Salaries are also not competitive in a lot of places. This implies there are other companies in the same city/region that pay better. I doubt it. From what I have seen, most German software devs are paid horribly, come to HN complain about it, then proceed to do nothing. The solution is to move to a place that pays higher salaries, like Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, or another country. Or get a 100% remote job.

Or move on from software dev- or not even code a single line and jump to „architect“ or some other bs position straight out of university.

Skip a step? In Germany? Surely you’re joking.