Hannover Messe 2025 Presents the Future of Artificial Intelligence in Industry

Hannover Messe is one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs, held annually in Hanover, Germany. It’s the industrial sector’s equivalent of the CES trade show.

The 2025 edition of Hannover Messe, themed “Shaping the Future with Technology,” took place from March 31st to April 4th, 2025. Hannover Messe is known for being overwhelming, and this year’s edition was no different. About 4,000 companies were represented at the exhibition stands, and the number one topic at the fair was artificial intelligence (AI).

We picked the most interesting highlights from the deluge of innovations at Hannover Messe.

Robotics, logistics, and automation

At Application Park, Hannover Messe, different companies exhibit innovations in robotics, logistics, and automation, which are presented as practical applications.

Inbolt showcased an AI-powered robotic guidance system using a 3D camera mounted directly on the robot and AI-supported algorithms. Conductix-Wampfler, a leading manufacturer of data and energy transmission systems for automated guided vehicles, presented the Enduro charging contact series and the WirelessCharger 3.0 inductive charger for efficient fleet operation. Also, Blickle’s ErgoMove 4000 highly modular electric drive systems are capable of supporting loads up to 4,000 kg at 2 km/h, reducing the physical effort required of human workers.

Maple Advanced Robotics Inc. won the Robotics Award 2025 for their AI-driven, no-code robotics programming platform. Leverage Robotics and Mantis Robotics were runner-ups. The winner was selected based on the “level of technical innovation, marketability, and economic viability.”

The “Battery Use Case” exhibition was a special highlight at Application Park: a collaborative project featuring 10 exhibitors to showcase the future of EV battery production with humanoid robots and AI at crucial steps of the value chain, from manufacturing to recycling.

Delta Electronics demonstrated how it uses NVIDIA Omniverse to create digital twins for testing and validation before deployment.

Sustainable systems with hydrogen & fuel cells

Sustainability was another key theme at Hannover Messe, with several exhibitors showcasing “the versatility and added value of hydrogen and fuel cells in industrial production.”

Fuel cell and hydrogen infrastructure developer Siqens presented its patented EHS (Electrochemical Hydrogen Separation) system, an efficient and cost-effective solution for extracting high-purity hydrogen from feed gases. Siqens CEO Thomas Klaue believes that EHS is vital for decentralized hydrogen supply. He says, “EHS technology can play a central role in sector coupling, in which electricity, heat, and transport are linked. In this way, we contribute to a more sustainable and CO2-reduced energy supply and create the conditions for a flexible, decentralized use of hydrogen.”

The GERMAN FUEL CELL COOPERATION (GFC) has leveraged the respective expertise of its component companies to develop a fully coordinated production line for manufacturing metallic bipolar plates (key components in fuel cells). According to GFC, this pioneering production line has an annual production capacity of several million bipolar plates, sufficient to cover the industry's current demand.

There were numerous other innovations in hydrogen storage, separation, and harnessing:

• balticFuelCells presented its liquid-cooled hydrogen fuel cell stack for light electric vehicles, including pedelecs and cargo bikes.
• Atlas Copco premiered its hydraulic hydrogen compressor for mobility applications, with a flexible design that makes it suitable for different applications from trailer filling to refueling stations.
• Bosch’s centerpiece was the company’s Hybrion PEM electrolysis stack — a scalable, compact solution for green hydrogen production. The company also won the H2Eco Award 2025 for BMG Pure Water, a chemical-free seawater treatment plant.

Artificial intelligence in industry

Several companies are working on implementing artificial intelligence-powered solutions on the shop floor. Exhibitions at Hannover Messe indicate that AI will play a key role in the following areas:

• Materials research: Cusp AI is developing a “search engine for materials.” The platform uses generative AI models to simulate new molecules and uses physics-based models to predict the properties of these molecules.
• Supply chain management: Elisa Indsutriq’s supply chain optimization software, sedAPta, utilizes AI-based algorithms to predict customer demand, evaluate suppliers, and manage inventory to prevent overstocking while maintaining availability.
• Predictive maintenance and inspection: Siemens and Roboverse Reply collaborated to create a solution for AI-controlled inspection in industrial environments. The platform is available in Siemen’s COMOS Mobile Worker app and orchestrates automated maintenance and inspection tasks centrally and in real-time.
• Real-time support and guidance: Augmentir’s Augie brings generative AI to the shop floor. It is a “generative AI assistant for frontline operations” that provides targeted support for skilled workers. According to Augmentir, Augie reduces the effort required to onboard new employees by up to 72 percent.
• Pharmaceutical production: Siemens showed off a series of AI-powered technologies to support and optimize the pharmaceutical production process, from engineering to predictive maintenance. The company won the Hermes Award 2025 for its suite of industrial copilots, including the industrial copilot for the TIA Portal.
• Energy management: The Hermes Startup Award 2025 was awarded to ecoplanet for its AI-powered energy management platform, Cockpit, “designed to help businesses analyze their energy consumption in real time."
• Automated kitting: Robotics software company Intrinsic exhibited two smart manufacturing demo solutions built on its platform: an automated kitting solution leveraging Roboception’s 3D smart camera and vision models, and a quality inspection service.

If the exhibitions at Hannover Messe 2025 are any indication, the future is AI-driven. However, it is yet unclear what role generative AI (by far, the most prominent form of artificial intelligence currently) will play in that transformative shift.

AI expert and former director of intelligent automation at NNAISENSE, Dr. Jan Koutnik, is placing his bets on reinforcement learning instead. In an interview with Robert Weber on the Industrial AI podcast, Jan Koutnik, “Many managers today think that generative AI is THE AI. But generative AI will not solve all the problems of industry. You could say that generative AI doesn't get its hands dirty. We want to do blue-collar AI.”

The next edition of Hannover Messe is scheduled for April 20th to 24th, 2026.