Since 2018, Alexander Rabe has been responsible as Managing Director for the strategic, political, and communicative positioning of the association at its locations in Berlin, Brussels, and Cologne. He joined eco in 2016 as Head of the Policy, Law, and Regulation Division and took over the management of the association’s Berlin office. He is also a co-initiator of the Alliance for Strengthening Digital Infrastructures in Germany, founded in 2018 under the umbrella of eco (https://digitale-infrastrukturen.net).
He is actively involved in digital policy and research, serving as a member of high-level advisory boards of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and the Federal Network Agency. His previous career includes leadership positions at the German Informatics Society (GI), the German Informatics Academy, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), where he gained extensive experience at the intersection of science, industry, and digital transformation.
Germany as an Economic Location: Data Centers as the Key to Digital Sovereignty
Strong, high-performance data centers are the backbone of digital transformation and the guarantors of digital sovereignty—making them one of Germany’s most important locational advantages. Operators of digital infrastructures act as growth engines, innovation drivers, and multipliers for numerous industries and sectors.
With the increasing deployment of AI, their significance will only continue to grow. As the engine of transformation, digital infrastructures—especially data centers—play a key role by providing essential computing power, data processing, and networking capabilities.
In his talk, Alexander Rabe examines the economic and political relevance of data centers in an illustrative way, drawing on a recent study conducted by the German Economic Institute.