Digital Sovereignty: How Dependent Is Germany?
How long can Germany's economy hold out without digital imports?
- Digital Sovereignty
Imagine if, starting tomorrow, no more chips, cloud services, or software came from abroad. How long could your company continue to operate? That’s exactly what the digital industry association Bitkom asked 602 companies with 20 or more employees. The average answer: 16 months. That’s two months longer than last year, but it’s still not a reassuring figure.
Almost no one can do without digital imports
96 percent of the companies surveyed source digital technologies or services from abroad. The most common are smartphones and laptops (94 percent), followed by hardware components such as chips and sensors (79 percent) and cloud services (73 percent). Software (68 percent), cybersecurity applications (62 percent), and AI (56 percent) also predominantly come from outside Germany.
It is therefore hardly surprising that 94 percent of companies rate Germany as highly or somewhat dependent on digital technologies. What is noteworthy is the outlook for the future: Two-thirds expect this dependence to continue growing over the next five years.
Concerns about the U.S. have nearly doubled
The shift in sentiment is particularly evident when it comes to the U.S. Seventy-three percent of companies are now concerned about their dependence on U.S. technologies, up from 38 percent in 2024. As for China, 79 percent are concerned (2024: 69 percent). In particular, 88 percent of importing companies feel dependent on China, compared to 87 percent for the U.S.
This is consistent with another finding: 59 percent say they have virtually no way to defend themselves against pressure from foreign partners or governments. In 2024, that figure was 39 percent.
A Disruption Would Affect Core Business
Digital dependency is not an IT issue that can be filed away in a specialized department. 93 percent of the affected companies expect an import disruption to impact production or service delivery; 91 percent expect it to affect sales and distribution; and 87 percent expect it to affect logistics and supply chains. IT operations themselves, at 69 percent, actually rank at the bottom of the list.
Price Matters When Making Purchases
And this is where things get uncomfortable: For 97 percent of companies, financial terms are the most important criterion when selecting foreign partners. When asked how easily a supplier could be replaced in an emergency, this factor does not play a direct role in their decision-making. Only half of the companies even consider a long-term business relationship and the level of trust.
At the same time, things are changing: 44 percent are increasingly relying on providers from Germany and Europe, 40 percent are preparing to replace key providers and systems if necessary, and only 3 percent have taken no action at all so far. There is still room for improvement, especially when it comes to open standards: only 13 percent are making greater use of them.
What the study doesn’t say, but implies
Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst emphasizes that this isn’t about isolation or self-sufficiency, but rather about reducing one-sided dependencies. And he makes it clear: Resilience doesn’t happen overnight. 68 percent of companies currently see no alternative to their existing dependencies.
This is precisely where the leverage lies. Those who choose software today are helping to determine whether they’ll still be able to switch in two years. Open standards, open source code, and interoperability aren’t an ideology, but safeguards for emergencies: they keep options open before pressure builds. Bitkom, too, explicitly cites secure, interoperable systems and open standards as part of its priorities for greater digital sovereignty.
Sovereignty Begins with the Next Decision
The 16-month figure is not a hard metric, but rather a self-assessment by companies. Yet that is precisely what makes the number meaningful: The business community believes it has only limited capacity to act and increasingly senses that it must change this. Digital sovereignty, therefore, does not begin only in the event of a crisis, but with the next procurement decision.