German government strikes AI deal with Nvidia as Amazon plans 16 billion euro investment

At an investment summit in Berlin on 20 October, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Jensen Huang, head of US chipmaker and AI technology company Nvidia, agreed on a cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI). According to Handelsblatt, the federal government will contribute a nine-figure sum in euros to the project. It matters because the aim is to strengthen Germany as a place to do business over the long term.

The deal was reached during a conversation held at the summit. Merz and Huang stressed that combining German engineering with cutting-edge AI could bolster the country's competitiveness. Around a dozen German companies are expected to take part in the Nvidia project, including Siemens, Audi and Freiburg-based AI start-up Black Forest Labs.

Huang: data is a national resource

Shortly before the summit, Huang criticised what he sees as Germany falling behind and urged the country to just get to work. He also repeated that data should be treated as a national resource that is not exported but used to build a "national intelligence". Nvidia says it invested almost 1 billion dollars in Germany in 2025 and holds stakes in numerous German start-ups and companies.

Merz called on German companies to open up their industrial data for AI so as to safeguard the competitiveness of sectors such as the car industry. The leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) argued that preserving the industrial base is a key advantage over other economies.

Amazon to invest 16 billion euros

The summit also heard that US tech company Amazon plans to invest around 16 billion euros in Germany in 2027. One third is earmarked for expanding data centres for its cloud arm, AWS. The planned 4.8 billion euros for AWS will go mainly to the Frankfurt am Main region. According to Amazon, around 3,000 people already work for AWS in Germany.

The outlook for the German economy has recently brightened somewhat: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) now forecasts growth of 1.3 percent for 2026, up from 0.7 percent previously. Whether further improvement will come from US tech giants' investment remains to be seen.