Date: April 20-24, 2026
Location: Hannover Exhibition Center, Germany
Event details: The 2026 Hanover Industrial Fair, with the theme of "Technology Shapes Sustainable Industry," is the largest comprehensive industrial event in Europe, attracting nearly 3000 exhibitors from around the world and over 65000 visitors. The biggest feature of this exhibition is that industrial AI is no longer limited to concept demonstrations, but is fully embedded in the entire automation control chain, from bottom level on-site sensors, edge controllers PLC， Form a complete closed loop to the upper level MES and digital twin platform.
The German national level Industry 4.0 platform Plattform Industrie 4.0 held a Leaders' Dialogue during the exhibition, with officials from the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection, Siemens SAP、 BASF and other corporate executives attended the conference together. The forum proposes a new concept of Industrie4AI: integrating industrial artificial intelligence into the entire lifecycle of automation engineering, production operation, and equipment maintenance, breaking the limitations of AI being only used for data analysis in the past, and achieving AI assisted or even autonomous control logic adjustment and abnormal condition recognition.
As core exhibitors, Germany LK (Lingke) and Siemens will focus on the upgrading results of Xcelerator digital platform, TIAPortal's new AI engineering assistant, industrial edge computing scheme, and at the same time, the automatic measurement and control network composed of intelligent material positions and pressure instruments will be displayed in the process industry exhibition area. A large number of German sensor manufacturers (including LK, VEGA Wig, Beijiafu, Endhaus, etc.) are showcasing the new generation of IO Link and smart measuring instruments that support Bluetooth debugging. These types of radar level gauges, guided wave radar level gauges, vibration level switches, and pressure transmitters can upload additional data such as self diagnostic information, corrosion monitoring, and instrument internal temperature in addition to the basic 4-20mA analog output, and can be directly connected to the automation platform to achieve predictive maintenance of instruments.
VDMA released an on-site industry observation report at the same time, which pointed out that Germany has a strong foundation in automation hardware technology, with strong global competitiveness in controllers, sensors, and drive products. However, three major problems seriously restrict the implementation of new technologies: insufficient digital investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, shortage of qualified automation engineers, and OT network security risks. Many small and medium-sized chemical and building materials enterprises still heavily use traditional analog instruments, which do not have self diagnostic capabilities. Automation systems can only collect a single measurement value and cannot sense the health status of sensors. Malfunctions can only rely on manual inspection. VDMA suggests that companies prioritize upgrading their underlying intelligent sensors and achieve low-cost digital transformation of automation systems.
