Digitalization is an important and universal tool for solving a wide variety of challenges of our time. It involves not only software but also innovative hardware concepts with significantly enhanced performance. These enable us to solve increasingly complex problems and address ever-more-complex issues. Thus, software and hardware—united through digitalization—make fundamental and important contributions to the economy, science, and society. They also provide innovative impetus on a global scale for addressing cross-border issues. We at NMWP.NRW focus in particular on innovative hardware and modern electronics. As a high-tech hub, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), with its comprehensive economic and scientific expertise in the field of hardware, is playing a key role in shaping the global economic transformation.
For example, new architectures in chip development based on RISC-V offer novel approaches to AI-based sensor technology at the European level. Quantum computing and neuromorphic chips will enable new areas of application for artificial intelligence through significantly increased computing capacity combined with reduced energy consumption. This will lead to innovations across all industrial sectors, thereby securing economic growth, employment, and prosperity in NRW.
Digitalization is making inroads into ever more areas of our lives. Not only in logistics or as sensor technology for predictive maintenance, but also in medical wearables, state-of-the-art processors contribute to health monitoring and, thereby, to greater well-being and a healthier life. Similarly, sensor technology, in combination with efficient chips, provides insights and an overview for designing sustainable cities and increasing agricultural yields. This holds great potential for tackling global challenges such as poverty and hunger, as well as for reducing environmental impact. The vast amounts of data collected and processed in this way are transmitted significantly faster thanks to THz photonics with 6G. This brings business locations and people closer together.
The digital twin, as a digital representation of, for example, production lines, offers insights into processes with the highest resolution. This reveals opportunities for optimization and allows changes in processes to be simulated. Last but not least, quantum computing will offer solutions in the future for problems that are currently unsolvable, for example in the areas of process optimization or material optimization.
As you can see, key technologies such as nano- and microsystems engineering, innovative materials, photonics, and quantum technologies are important hardware enablers for future digital and computing concepts. Although they receive little public attention, they make indispensable contributions to improving our lives and strengthening the economy. With this issue of our magazine, we’d like to offer a brief glimpse into some of the activities and contributions in these fields from North Rhine-Westphalia.