Industry 4.0 is well on its way to become a reality in Luxembourg. Flagship projects in the field are being implemented by major industrial groups who testify to the general willingness to innovate within Luxembourg’s industry. In recent years, nearly two-thirds of private R&D expenditure came from the industrial sector.
This positive trend is underlined by the digital innovation strategy being put in place by the Luxembourg government. The country already has one of the highest performing digital broadband networks in the EU, with very low latency rates, and is ranked number 2 in the EU 2018 Digital Transformation Scoreboard for “connectivity”. The government is investing in new high performance computing (HPC) infrastructures that will be available for use by the private sector. Recognised for its pioneering role in these fields, Luxembourg was recently designated to host the future EuroHPC agency. Luxembourg’s ICT services sector is particularly well developed and public research centres have internationally recognised expertise in secure data storage, connectivity and information security.
R&D initiatives
The government is encouraging the private and public sectors to form partnerships to bring research from the university and other public research institutions, innovative R&D start-ups and big industrial players together to work on the smart factories of tomorrow. This in the fields of artificial intelligence, advanced software engineering, machine learning, data analytics and cyber-physical systems. Support and encouragement to experiment and innovate with new advanced digital technologies, to accelerate integration into services and products, is a key focus of the Ministry of the Economy.
A high priority of the Luxembourg government remains to support companies to be leaders in data-driven, sustainable, high-value manufacturing solutions.
With this in mind, the Ministry is currently supporting digitising industry experimentation, support platforms and testbeds, both at national and European level.
Digital Innovation Hub
A new initiative highlighting Luxembourg’s determination to ensure that all industrial companies in Luxembourg, whatever their size, can embrace the digital opportunities of the future is the Luxembourg Digital Innovation Hub, (L-DIH). Jointly set up by the Ministry of the Economy, FEDIL – the Voice of Luxembourg’s Industry and Luxinnovation with support from the European Commission, the L-DIH is scheduled for launch in early 2019, and is aimed at stimulating the digitalisation of industry. The L-DIH will provide a platform for digital technology exchange between research organisations, institutional partners and private digital service providers and will connect to the network of the EU’s other DIHs.
It will also connect with European Commission supported testing and experimentation facilities for artificial intelligence to support the uptake of this key technology by Luxembourg SMEs, providing the framework for Industry 4.0 in Luxembourg.
Industry 4.0 is an exciting opportunity for Luxembourg’s industry to respond to the competitive need for digitalisation of its industry. “A high priority of the Luxembourg government remains to support companies to be leaders in data-driven, sustainable, high-value manufacturing solutions. We will continue to do so by strengthening existing initiatives in the areas of R&D, and government financing, by optimising the high-tech infrastructure and by co-funding R&D projects going forward,” explains Mario Grotz, Director General for Research, Intellectual Property and New Technologies at the Ministry of the Economy.