AI Report | The Hamburg AI Year 2025

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This post has been translated by an AI and may contain translational inaccuracies.

For the Hamburg metropolitan region, 2025 was a year in which artificial intelligence was increasingly used in a targeted manner. As a result, the Hanseatic city continues to establish itself as an important AI location in northern Germany. In this report, we share a small selection of our personal highlights from the past AI year. Due to the large number of projects and the rapid progress in the metropolitan region, we are of course unable to include all of the pioneering initiatives.

Progress in mobility and AI in Hamburg

Autonomous Holon minibus in Hamburg Photo: HOCHBAHN

In the field of mobility, decisive steps have been taken towards autonomous transportation systems. HOCHBAHN’s ALIKE (autonomous on-demand shuttles) project, in which MOIA, HOLON and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, among others, are involved, has developed a unique ridepooling system. The aim of this system is to establish highly automated driving (SAE Level 4) as a barrier-free addition to traditional public transport. After the first autonomous MOIA shuttles were already in test operation on Hamburg’s streets, the first test drives with the HOLON vehicles began in mid-2025 [1]. This is pioneering work in Europe.

At the same time, the automation of the subway made great progress under the project name U-Bahn100: the first public test run on the U1 line between Farmsen and Berne was successfully completed at the end of July 2025. By automating the U2 and U4 lines to 100-second intervals, capacity on the section with the highest passenger numbers is to be increased by up to 50 percent, with the train crew remaining on board to ensure safety when changing passengers [2].

AI, logistics and maritime in Hamburg

Closely linked to the progress made in inner-city transportation, Hamburg is also continuing its digital transformation in its historic core segments. In the logistics and maritime sectors, digitalization gained further momentum through several key projects. The AKIDU(Automated, AI-integrated Dispatching for Universal Terminals) research project was successfully completed in August 2025, setting a new milestone in the digitalization of the O’Swaldkai Multi-Purpose Terminal. Under the leadership of UNIKAI, AKQUINET and HITeC e.V., practicable IT tools were developed for the digital recording, planning and 3D visualization of non-standardized cargo in order to increase handling performance [3]. In May 2025, the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) also presented the advanced SeaClear2.0 robotic system in live operation, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous underwater and surface vehicles to detect and remove marine litter, particularly plastic waste on the seabed [4].

The HPA is also actively committed to increasing the safety of the port infrastructure: As part of a test, the Spot robot dog was used in collaboration with Boston Dynamics and Reply for technically supported structural inspections on the Köhlbrand Bridge. The robot took high-resolution photos of damaged areas and inspected areas that are too dangerous or difficult for humans to access. The captured data and 3D scans were then used to create a digital twin of the bridge in order to simulate damage using AI [5].

Highlights from AI and medicine in Hamburg

In the medical and life science sector, Hamburg established innovative AI applications to improve patient care and accelerate research. IDMedizin(Innovative Digitale Medizin gGmbH), a spin-off of the UKE, has positioned itself as a central player by making AI-based applications usable. It works with the highest security standards to make data from the UKE’s digital patient files usable while complying with data protection regulations.

A key project was the rollout of the AI-supported language model Orpheus, which was specially trained for medical language and everyday clinical practice in order to automatically and accurately convert spoken content from doctors, nurses and other staff into text form. This simplifies and accelerates transcription and documentation in the healthcare sector [6]. In order to meet the high regulatory requirements of the healthcare sector, the model runs on a sovereign and independent infrastructure. By developing its own models, the system can operate independently, handle patient data sensitively and adapt flexibly to new requirements.

In parallel, the Fraunhofer ITMP under Prof. Carsten Claussen is driving drug development forward by using AI models to predict ideal drug structures in order to speed up the search for new drugs and double the hit rate [7].

Digital sovereignty in Hamburg

The development of digital sovereignty, which the UKE is driving forward in medicine, is also reflected in public administration. The rollout of the self-hosted AI text assistant LLMoin, which was developed specifically for the requirements of the Hamburg administration and places a strong focus on data protection and security, began in December 2024 and continued in 2025. LLMoin supports the summarization of texts and the generation of new content in order to increase the efficiency of administrative processes [8]. The political dimension of AI governance was also strengthened: in June 2025, the Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI for the SDGs was presented. This initiative, supported by Christian Pfromm (CDO of the City of Hamburg), was developed by international partners from politics, business, science and civil society to set an ethical framework for the equitable, sustainable and inclusive design of AI worldwide, especially for countries that have so far hardly benefited from digital innovations [9].

In addition, the DIPAS_analytics conference took place in September, marking the conclusion of a project in which AI and location information are to be used to clearly organize and better evaluate the many tips, comments and ideas from citizens from participation procedures [10].

AI and the media industry

As one of the structurally defining economic sectors in the Hamburg metropolitan region, the media sector is a particular focus of the AI transformation. This initial situation led to the initiation of the AIM Leaders Conference as a platform for exchange and classification. This first specialist conference for AI in the media and digital industry in the DACH region took place on November 27, 2025 at the Mojo Club [11]. The event, organized by nextMedia.Hamburg and in cooperation with ARIC (supporting), brought together decision-makers to promote the exchange of knowledge and the acceleration of AI developments and to position Hamburg as a hub for AI in the media industry.

In July, ARIC and the University of Hamburg also celebrated the premiere of the AI Arena: The AI Challenge of the Generations as an innovative educational and dialog format. This cross-generational game show demonstrated in a playful way, through challenges such as prompt formulation and robot programming, that AI education can also be taught in an entertaining way [12].

Highlights from the AI startup scene

The startup scene in Hamburg also reached a number of milestones last year. The AI.STARTUP.HUB Hamburg concluded with a festive FINAL COUNTDOWN Startup Graduation & Farewell Party on November 27, 2025. The hub thus successfully completed its function as a central ecosystem catalyst for the promotion of deep tech AI companies in northern Germany. The project was funded by the BMWE with 3.8 million euros [13]. Flower.AI is an already established Hamburg startup that is making an important contribution to the democratization of AI research with its open source platform for the distributed training of large language models. Their system Photon, a framework for federated pre-training of LLMs, was presented at the renowned MLSys 2025 conference, where it was described and evaluated as the first fully-fledged system of its kind [14]. Furthermore, 3D Spark, an AI-powered manufacturing optimization startup and former AI.Startup Hub participant, closed a community funding round in November 2025 to further accelerate efficient, transparent and data-driven industrial production [15].

AI in science in Hamburg

An excellent basis is required to sustainably support the start-up ecosystem and the entire technology location. In the field of science, Hamburg further consolidated its position as an outstanding location. The DKRZ (German Climate Computing Center) achieved a remarkable success in November 2025 with the new GPU expansion of the Levante supercomputer, which is one of the three most energy-efficient high-performance computing clusters in the world [16].

Explanation of terms

HPC (High Performance Computing) refers to very powerful computer systems that use specialized hardware and configurations to process large amounts of data in parallel, enabling them to solve complex, computationally intensive problems.

In addition, a team of climate researchers from Hamburg involving the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the DKRZ was awarded the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modeling for its pioneering achievements in high-performance computing [17].

Universität Hamburg secured the continued funding of its four existing Clusters of Excellence with successful renewal applications, including CLICCS (Climate, Climatic Change, and Society), which was again approved for seven years [18]. The TUHH has also been awarded a Cluster of Excellence for the first time with the BlueMat: Water Driven Materials project [19]. In the field of security, Prof. Oliver Niggemann at HSU is working intensively on machine learning and AI methods for cyber-physical systems, in particular for anomaly detection and predictive maintenance [20].

Last but not least, HAW Hamburg, where Prof. Dr. Marina Tropmann-Frick (Data Science and Responsible AI) is a member of the board of directors of the new doctoral program Computational Engineering and Applied Data Science (CEADS), received a positive assessment from the German Council of Science and Humanities for its concept to establish an independent doctoral program [21].

Highlights in the transfer area

The transfer of the latest AI methods into practical application will be further expanded in Hamburg with the successful extension of the ongoing EDIH Hamburg project. As part of a Europe-wide network of European Digital Innovation Hubs EDIH Hamburg 2.0 specifically supports small and medium-sized enterprises and public institutions in the introduction and use of artificial intelligence. The consortium partners from the Chamber of Skilled Crafts, TUHH, HAW, DigiHub, ARIC and under the coordination of HITeC will continue this proven offer over the next three years [22].

Against the backdrop of increasing regulatory requirements due to the EU AI Regulation and existing regulatory hurdles, which represent ever-increasing barriers to market entry for start-ups and SMEs, the ARIC, in collaboration with the Lawcom Institute, has successfully developed a concept for the establishment of an AI sandbox on behalf of the Senate. This is designed as a modular real-world laboratory that supports companies, research and administration in bringing AI systems into use faster, more securely and with regulatory compatibility. The aim is to significantly reduce the time to market for highly regulated products.

Conclusion

Overall, the developments in 2025 show that Hamburg is actively seizing the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence in many areas. These include the areas of mobility, port, health, administration, media, start-up support and research. Close cooperation between public authorities, business and science is creating practical AI solutions that both strengthen economic power and focus on added value for society as a whole. It is not easy to select individual highlights from the many innovative projects. If we have not mentioned some of them, this is not because they are not highlights, but simply because we had to make a certain pre-selection.

The successes listed above clearly show that Hamburg is positioning itself as one of the leading AI locations in Germany and has a clear focus on the future technology of AI and its responsible use for the benefit of the city and its people.

Sources

Authors: Jakob Mertes, Amar Bolkan, ARIC
Cover photo: Hochbahn