Attending the first GITEX AI Europe expo in Berlin

GITEX Europe is Europe’s largest enterprise tech- and digital innovation exhibition, bringing together global tech companies, startups, investors, exhibitors and other global actors showcase and advance AI-, cloud-, cybersecurity-, and next‑generation digital technologies, marking the first GITEX expo in Europe.

It was great to this well-planned and executed event, including a wide variety of innovative companies exhibiting their products and services, many being bigger corporations and organizations with booths and presence to match, but also allowing for many smaller booths where startups and smaller companies can display their innovations as well.

Naturally, there were many sessions on the various stages spread out throughout the facilities, such as an interview session with Geoffrey Hinton, the 2024 Physics Nobel Laureate, how current models work taking words and converting to logical forms to derive patterns, but that it may actually work like converting word symbols to feature vectors to create understanding and reasoning, that the inputs of models, such as the lack of spatial awareness and only understanding text is a limitation for contextual understanding, the importance of short-term memory and much more.

Another highly interesting panel session discussed the role of AI regulation, as well as the environmental impact of AI, as each AI based search, summaries and prompts consume 5 to 20 times more energy depending on the model and measurement methodology compared to a “regular” metadata-based search engine search, that more focus should be put on model energy efficiency, and that whether AI will turn into something that will drive more emissions and turn out negative for carbon emission reduction or not, i.e., if continuing to be deployed primarily for efficiency gains/cost cuts, or also become a technology that can assist and accelerate carbon emissions reduction, sustainable development and fulfilling environment and sustainability goals, will be dependent on how AI is used.

GITEX Europe 2025 was well worth the visit, providing ample opportunities for forging new business and business connections as well as inspiration, and am now looking forward to GITEX expos coming up in 2026.