Foreign direct investment in Germany grew 37.5% in 2023 to €34.8 billion ($38 billion) worth of international business projects compared to €25.3 billion ($27 billion) in 2022, according to Germany Trade & Invest’s (GTAI) annual FDI study. There were 24 fewer projects last year than in 2022, but of the 1,759 logged by the agency, 11 exceeded €500 million in investment and eight passed the €1 billion mark, or $541 million and $1.08 billion respectively.
Ground broke in August on one of last year’s signature project announcements — European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s €10 billion ($10.8 billion) microchip plant in Dresden. ESMC is a joint venture of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Infineon, NXP Semiconductors of the Netherlands and Bosch. The European Union is contributing €5 billion ($5.4 billion) in state subsidies to the project.
“We’re very pleased with how quickly the TSMC project has progressed, demonstrating what’s possible for businesses operating in Germany within the EU,” said Robert Hermann, CEO of Germany Trade & Invest, in a statement. “Together with other significant projects planned by giants like Infineon and Intel, this confirms that the eastern part of Germany is Europe’s semiconductor heartland.”
IBM’s Quantum Leap
On October 1, IBM opened the IBM Quantum Data Center in Ehningen, Germany, its first such facility outside the U.S. In attendance was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, among other European government and industry officials.
“The opening of the IBM Quantum Data Center in Ehningen is good news for Germany,” he said at the ribbon cutting. “It will serve as a location for innovation and business growth and is an expression of investors’ confidence in the German market. IBM enriches the German quantum computing landscape with this new data center. The German government is providing targeted support for the development of quantum technologies. It is thereby driving forward the development of competencies and capacities in quantum computing in order to promote a robust ecosystem around the development of quantum computers.”
Crédit Mutuel, Bosch, E.ON, Volkswagen Group and Ikerbasque are among the European enterprises that are part of IBM’s Quantum Network with plans to access systems at the Center.
