According to new research from the Public IT Competence Center, Hamburg has overtaken Berlin as the top German city for digitisation.

The German Index for Digitisation 2021 

As Germany becomes more digital, not all of the country is advancing at the same pace. The latest German Index for Digitisation not only shows that Hamburg has stolen the top spot from the German capital, but also shows the extent to which different parts of the country are lagging behind. 

Despite some progress since the last index was published in 2019, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are trailing behind many other German regions. Hesse and Bavaria by contrast have surged ahead, making strong advances in digitisation. 

The index compares regions over many important metrics 

In order to create the index, researchers from the Public IT Competence Center at the Fraunhofer Institute assessed the IT infrastructure in each German state, as well as the use of digital administrative services by citizens. The index also looked at research funding and training opportunities for IT specialists, among other measures of digitisation. 

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, digitisation has become a major issue for a lot of sectors, especially in federal and municipal administration. Network expansion, which increased rapidly in 2020, has ensured that regions such as Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Brandenburg are better equipped for digital transformation in the coming years. 

Bavarians are the biggest Internet users 

Bavaria (75,3 percent), Rhineland-Palatinate (74 percent) and Hamburg (71,6 percent) have been revealed to be the states with a particularly high proportion of citizens who use the internet on a daily basis. 

The pandemic has also created a strong need for automation across many sectors, and Artificial Intelligence has become a key talking point in the world of IT. According to the index, 40,7 percent of the population see AI as an asset. 26,5 percent perceive it as a threat. 32,8 percent of those questioned were neutral.

For more information about the research conducted by the Public IT Competence Center at the Fraunhofer Institute, visit their website.