According to a new Red Hat study, 80% of IT managers surveyed in Germany see digital sovereignty as a key strategic priority for the next 18 months. Security (79%) and hybrid and multi-cloud strategies (78%) follow close behind. 74% attach great importance to AI and are planning an average investment increase of 34% by 2026. At the same time, 85% report that their AI initiatives to date have not yet resulted in any customer benefits.

The biggest skills gaps in Germany from the perspective of IT and AI managers. © Red Hat

The biggest obstacle to the use of AI remains the shortage of skilled workers, according to 77% of respondents. This also reflects the priorities of German IT and AI managers: 58% of respondents who complain about a lack of AI expertise see the greatest need for qualifications in linking AI with company data, closely followed by agentic AI (52%) and training employees in the use of AI (51%).

Almost all respondents (99%) see obstacles to the introduction of AI, in particular the high costs of implementation and maintenance (32%), the lack of transparency in AI models (30%) or with regard to AI teams isolated from IT departments (29%).

Majority see Germany as a global leader

AI priorities in Germany for the next 18 months © Red Hat

Technical and organizational barriers also make scaling difficult: high implementation and maintenance costs (32%), lack of transparency of models (30%) and isolated AI teams (29%). Despite these challenges, 98% are convinced that Germany is already a leading AI nation or has the potential to become one within three years. Other European countries, such as Spain with 99% and Sweden and the Netherlands with 98%, also have high scores here.

Respondents cite the lack of a computing infrastructure (49%), insufficient commitment from the private sector (47%) and the lack of the right government policy and strategy (45%) as the main reasons hindering Germany's emergence as a leading AI nation

Top IT priorities for German companies in the next 18 months. © Red Hat

Respondents attribute a central role to open source: 96% consider an open source strategy to be crucial for digital sovereignty, cloud architectures, virtualization and security. "The survey shows that AI and digital sovereignty play an important role in German companies. Open source can bridge the gap here. A consistent open source approach promotes the technological openness required to implement a wide range of control and compliance requirements more securely. With AI, traceability should always be at the forefront, as few companies want a black box in terms of algorithms, training data or models. Therefore, promoting transparency and openness in the AI strategy is also of great importance for the companies surveyed in Germany - and open source in particular can offer this," says Gregor von Jagow, Senior Director and Country Manager Germany at Red Hat.

Open source and cloud are key topics

In order to overcome these challenges and achieve their AI goals, German companies are relying on open source in all areas of their IT strategy. Respondents almost unanimously (96%) consider open source software to be important for companies when it comes to digital sovereignty, hybrid or multi-cloud, virtualization and security.

The cloud is and remains one of the three most important topics on the IT agenda in Germany. As an additional workload, AI increases complexity and must be reconciled with evolving cloud strategies. The obstacles to cloud adoption remain: respondents cite concerns about sovereignty (73%), resistance to change from employees (70%) and internal silos (69%). When looking at the cloud sovereignty strategy for the next 18 months, respondents from Germany focus on transparency and auditability (86%), flexibility and freedom of choice for IT providers (84%) and securing the software supply chain (82%).