13:00 – 16:00 Uhr
Donnerstag, 2. Juli 2026
DeepTech Ripples bring an interactive, discussion-driven format to the Festival der Zukunft, focused on the future of European deeptech. In small, curated conversation circles, up to 20 participants – from founders and investors to corporates, policymakers, and research institutions – come together for a high-quality exchange. Rather than presentations or pitches, each session centers on a clear, debate-worthy question, creating space to explore challenges, share insights, and co-create solutions. Guided by experienced hosts, these conversations aim to foster learning, new perspectives, and actionable takeaways across the deeptech ecosystem. Set against the backdrop of Europe’s strong research and industrial base, alongside ongoing challenges in scaling breakthrough technologies, DeepTech Ripples invite participants to engage openly and constructively with the key tensions shaping the field today. +++ In collaboration with World Fund, Vsquared Ventures, Pale blue dot and DeepTech & Climate Fonds +++
The robotics market is entering a period of explosive growth, set to become a hundred-billion-dollar industry in the next decade, creating a debate between specialised vertical systems and general-purpose humanoids. Vertical robots already deliver ROI in structured environments l…
Europe is behind on compute, and the gap is widening. Others scale aggressively, the US is already putting GPUs into orbit and we’re stuck navigating regulation and creaking energy grids. This Ripple digs into what it actually takes to build out Europe’s data center infrastructur…
Social media set the conditions and AI is amplifying them: data centre energy demand outrunning grid capacity, learning and entry-level work hollowing out as models take over the tasks that used to build expertise, and a media environment where real and generated content are no l…
As deeptech companies scale, founders increasingly face a strategic question: How can they leverage the strengths of both the European and US ecosystems to build truly global businesses? From access to capital and talent to market opportunities and geopolitical uncertainty, diffe…
As AI compute runs into terrestrial limits — grid capacity, energy cost, cooling, water use, land and permitting — orbital data centres are moving from sci-fi into serious infrastructure conversations. We’ll debate whether space-based compute could become credible infrastructure,…
Europe has ambitious plans for batteries, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing. But turning strategic ambition into industrial reality requires secure access to critical raw materials. As traditional supply chains face growing pressure, biomining is emerging as a potential …
DeepTech is built on the assumption that better technology wins. Yet superior systems often lose to weaker incumbents because technical capability alone does not guarantee trust, adoption, or institutional acceptance. Using digital voting as a particularly revealing example, this…
An honest, hype-free collaboration session focused on the quantum industry's 2026 consolidation phase. We will tackle how quantum startups must pivot from focusing purely on qubit counts and lab metrics to capturing real customer wallets. 2026 is the year of the European quantum …
Battery production has become a strategic priority for Europe’s industrial future. Yet competing head-on in global mass-market manufacturing means facing enormous scale advantages elsewhere. At the same time, European companies are building differentiated technologies and special…
The success of European DeepTech depends on the availability of significant volumes of long‑term capital, yet institutional investors remain underrepresented in venture capital allocations. While regulatory constraints play a role, they do not fully explain this gap. Structural b…
European deep tech founders are often brilliant technologists who build world-class IP in university labs, research centres or corporate R&D, then struggle at the exact moment when they need commercialize and industrialize their technology. We explore potential ways and what it t…
