Nice to meet you. You may already find your spots. You should have your names to see where you're supposed to sit, so that you're here. Then on the right-hand side.
Wonderful. Good. The chair is already here. Fantastic. Co-CEO of Helsing. We also have with us Ben Joffe, CEO of Sanofi, of course, the Chancellor to my left, Will Marshall, CEO of Planet Labs, Francis Wedin from Vulcan Energy, and Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens. Good morning to you all.
So we have industry, critical raw materials, space, defense technology, pharmaceuticals represented here, and from long-established companies to a newer generation of technology businesses. We have six panelists, a wealth of experience, one big question, and just about, oh, 20 minutes. We've even been cut down now. I think you can already tell that we are putting Germany's reputation for efficiency to the test, and I seriously hope I can count on all of you to help me uphold it. Will, let's start with you. Starting with Planet Labs. It's a company that is in California. You build satellites to observe the Earth. You've chosen Berlin as a new satellite factory location. Why Germany?
Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks very much for being here. It's really a delight. Just a quick second on Planet, what we do for those unfamiliar: we build, launch, and operate the largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites. So satellites that image the entire Earth every day. That's what we uniquely do. And we've built about 700 satellites so far, launched on 44 rockets. In fact, we have another launch today from Florida. It was delayed from yesterday. Basically, the second-largest number of satellites built in the world, after SpaceX. We decided what this is doing for the world is helping with sustainability, security around the planet. We're the prime providers of satellite data for Ukraine, for example, monitoring all of Russia every day, finding new threats. Of course, very similar to the needs that Europe has today, and we want to bring those lessons here. So why are we investing in Germany? We've built a satellite manufacturing facility here in Berlin, in fact, and we will do the first satellite off the line later this year. And Minister Karin Prien came to open the facility. And why we're here is because it's excellent talent. We have strong demand from countries around Europe. We just announced a partnership with Sweden to launch their first optical reconnaissance satellites. In fact, we've already launched the first one. And we have strong partnerships. We just signed a partnership with Isar Aerospace to launch our first satellite off the line. It will be launched on a German-built rocket. It will be the first time in history that a satellite is built in Germany, launched on a German-built rocket, all sovereign. And perhaps most of all, because we think we can help Germany and Europe enable it to have its own eyes, so it's not just dependent on other partners. So that we have a vision to help Europe have its own eyes to what's going on, both domestically with hybrid threats as well as externally, so it has its own ability to see. And we can do that all built here in Germany. As Minister Prien said at our opening, satellite intelligence is no longer a luxury. It is a prerequisite for security, resilience, and genuine security autonomy. We agree, and we're here to help.
Thank you. Sounds very good. Well, Roland Busch, of course, has undergone major transformations. Industrial AI opens another chapter. We had the pleasure of talking to Jensen Huang yesterday evening, and he mentioned that there is already a collaboration between Nvidia and Siemens. What potential do you see for industrial AI to strengthen Germany as a location for industry?
The question is, where is not a potential? So I mean, industrial AI is actually changing everything that we do, from the design process of our products to the way how we manufacture, to the way how we operate the assets in the field. And this is maybe the most fundamental change which you see in human history. Electricity was one which was changing everything. This is even stronger and faster. Take the design process. Currently, we use simulation tools in order to verify designs. So we're working on now, we call it industrial foundation models, which are trained on designs, actually not on individual designs, but the way how we change the design from one level to another, which allows us now to really genuinely create designs with AI technology that can increase the speed, but also the efficiency with which you develop products. Secondly, let's talk the manufacturing space, and maybe that is the most important one. We create actually, and Jensen said it yesterday, and we do that over and over again. We build manufacturing sites twice. First in the digital world, and we optimize each and everything down to the people running on the shop floor. They're digitalized as well until it works. And then we start sending the excavation machine and build the lines. And with that, you can save time. I mean, you get it right the first time. You save energy, you can increase your space productivity big time. And once you have the digital twin, you want to have it alive for the lifetime of your plant, because if there's a change, you want to put a new robot on the place, simulate it first, and then do it. And AI gives you a huge opportunity to really enhance the speed with which you do that, the simulation speed, but also the way how you are really optimizing a whole plant on a shop floor. We call it a digital thread, which really connects. And by the way, once you have that and you change your design, then you can make a design change and bring it all the way to your plant. And then operation space. I mean, predictive maintenance, the way how you run assets, what you can save, energy efficiency. Our trains basically, they send a message to the depot before they arrive with enough lead times. So the spare parts are there, the people are there to repair it, and every train leaves the depot without any default. Again,
Roland, that is so much potential, but turning it into investment undoubtedly also depends on a reliable policy environment. How do you want to guarantee that, or what do you want to do to facilitate that?
Well, the key factor in my view is speed and execution, and we have to do our work in the government and in parliament to bring this regulation scheme in place, which is the best one for this new technology. And that is the reason why we are so engaged, I'm in person so engaged on the European level to have an AI regulation which is opening the door and not closing the door before it happens. So this is why we are engaged in our government, changing the legal framework for all the regulatory schemes, and that is why we are here with you today, listening to you, hearing what we could change, what we could do better. And this is the reason why we are having this cooperation between industry and politics. This is something which is really encouraging me, and we are seeing so many potentials, so big, big potentials ahead of our industry, of our country, that I'm really optimistic that we will achieve that. But again, we have to do our homework.
Francis, you clearly had confidence in the conditions here, both above and below the ground, so to speak. You came all the way from Australia to pursue an opportunity in the Upper Rhine Valley, extracting lithium for batteries from hot underground water while also harnessing its geothermal energy. Could you briefly tell us what prompted this decision?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, it's a huge honor to be here. So, thank you very much for the invitation. So, my name is Francis Wedin. I'm the founder of Vulcan Energy. Vulcan Energy is the world's first integrated geothermal energy and lithium company. So we make lithium for batteries going into electric cars, drones, stationary storage, and we wanted to be close to our customers in Europe. So obviously, distance to customer was important. But it was also one of the main things that attracted us about Germany was because we're a chemicals company, the vast chemicals industry experience here. So we could really find good people in the Rhine Valley who could help us build this thing. We know that energy is a problem in Europe, in Germany, cost of energy, and we don't want to rely on subsidies. We don't want to rely on handouts to make lithium for the auto industry. We want to do this competitively, and the way we do that is with leading-edge technology to harness the geothermal energy that's in the brine, the deep geothermal energy. This is a deep brine under the subsurface. We pump it up to the surface. The first thing we do is we take the geothermal energy from that brine and we power the lithium extraction process with that. So we don't need to rely on energy from outside. We make our own. We actually make a surplus of energy, a surplus of heat that we sell locally. So I think we're probably the only chemicals company around this region who can say that we're cheaper than China. We can make lithium cheaper than the Chinese can. So it's using that leading-edge technology to harness the geothermal energy to drive lithium extraction. Lastly, I'd just like to say, I mean, we hear a lot about permitting being slow in Germany, red tape, etc. I have to say, we found, touchwood, we found the experience to be absolutely excellent. So we were the first investment by the German raw materials fund as well. So Minister Prien was very, very helpful with that, and we formed a sort of grand coalition of investors from Australia, from Germany, from the rest of Europe. And the whole process, the financing process, went extremely smoothly, the permitting process went extremely smoothly. So I think it's a great example of what we can do together between Australia and Europe and Germany.
Wow. Thank you. Very nice.
I'll use this as an example later in our meet-the-government sessions when people might complain about regulation or about permitting, rather speedy permitting. Gundab, Helsing, one of the companies that really has grown so rapidly in just a few years. You've chosen to build and invest in Germany and Europe rather than elsewhere. In a nutshell, why?
