German Press Notes: Russia`s Robotics Progress Outpaces Germany`s
While the streets of megacities in Russia, China, and the USA are steadily becoming testing grounds for delivery robots and autonomous taxis, Germany, Europe`s industrial giant, risks being left behind in technological progress. As reported by the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung (article translated by InoSMI), Germany`s decline is evident in this sector: the country is struggling to integrate robots into public spaces. The blame, according to the publication, lies not with technical backwardness but with an overwhelming level of bureaucracy, a conservative mindset, and a generally underdeveloped necessary infrastructure.
Vivid examples from abroad only underscore Germany`s lag. In China, compact robots have long delivered food in skyscrapers; in the USA, entire neighborhoods are served by autonomous transport; and videos from Russia show luxury cars politely yielding to Yandex delivery robots at crosswalks. Against this backdrop, Berlin`s streets appear sterile, devoid of any high-tech services. The participants of the German-Chinese Future Intelligent Manufacturing Forum, held as part of the Big Bang AI festival in Berlin, sought answers to why this is happening.
David Reger, founder of Neura Robotics, attributes one of the key reasons to mentality. He notes that Germany traditionally prioritizes tradition and caution, whereas China or the USA are more willing to accept temporary technological imperfections for the sake of faster progress. German society tends to adopt innovations only when they are almost perfect, which significantly slows down their implementation. This perspective is complemented by infrastructural problems. Wilhelm Berg, a representative of China Mobile International, provided a simple example: a trip from his hometown to Hamburg involved at least a 30-minute absence of stable mobile connection. Such «dead zones» make the functioning of autonomous transport, which requires constant data exchange, impossible.
Cultural and infrastructural barriers are closely intertwined with rigid regulatory frameworks. Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Xijie vividly explained the difference in approaches. In Germany, if a navigation pillar for autonomous transport needs to be installed in a factory, it would first require a major overhaul of the entire workshop. In China, such a solution is implemented quickly and with minimal costs. The official response from Berlin`s Senate Department for Transport to a Berliner Zeitung inquiry confirms this issue: the commercial use of delivery robots is currently impossible due to the lack of appropriate federal legislation. Even research projects require exceptional permits and detailed safety concepts.
There have been attempts at breakthroughs, but they ended in nothing. Uber reports over 1.5 million autonomous rides worldwide, but not in Germany. The company`s plans to begin trials in Munich in 2026 appear to be a deferred prospect. DHL discontinued trials of its PostBOT in 2017 due to high costs, and Starship Technologies` delivery experiment in Wolfsburg was halted after just a few days. Today, robotics in Germany remains confined within the walls of warehouses and distribution centers, where thousands of autonomous systems efficiently move shelves but do not reach the end consumer.
However, forum participants agreed that Germany simply has no choice. An aging society and a growing shortage of skilled labor make robotization not a whim, but a necessity. Philipp Roehrig, head of welding equipment manufacturer Abicor Group, states that finding welders today is virtually impossible in either Germany or China, and the few who remain demand very high wages. Collaborative, easy-to-operate robots are becoming the solution. Artificial intelligence already allows his company to save time and money by controlling welding quality in real-time, without costly X-rays.
Former Federal Minister of Economics Brigitte Zypries warned that Germany must not become complacent and merely observe new markets emerging elsewhere in the world. If the country continues to procrastinate, decisions about how Germans will live and work will ultimately be made thousands of kilometers away from Berlin. For now, the capital is taking cautious steps, testing drones for medicine delivery as part of a laboratory project. But until the day a robot courier knocks on the door of an ordinary Berlin apartment, Germany has a long way to go to overcome its own fears and bureaucratic barriers, the publication concludes.
