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Business Development munich business
Startseite Stadt München
Startseite Stadt München
Industries
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Industry focus

Information and communications technology (ICT)

Munich is booming as an IT center thanks to outstanding employees, high-intensity research and in-depth involvement with business and application technologies.

Munich is Europe’s IT magnet

As far back as 2014, an EU industry report ranked Munich  as Europe’s top ICT region. The pace of development has been rapid ever since.

Munich’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector boasts impressive growth, with a 56 percent regional increase in employment jumping to 78 percent within the city itself. 11.5 percent of all employees in Munich work in the ICT sector.

Global players and market leaders

Munich is a magnet for major and innovative IT companies. Global players and market leaders are well established and continue to expand operations in Munich, among them eight of the world’s ten largest tech companies. Prominent examples include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google Deutschland, Huawei, IBM - Watson and Microsoft.

Other major companies with central offices in Munich include the CRM-solutions provider Salesforce, Fujitsu with its Digital Transformation Center (DTC), the software specialists for the construction industry NEMETSCHEK AG, the producer of supercomputers Eviden, Capgemini Technology Services, Cisco Systems, NTT Data Deutschland, the Indian companyTech Mahindra, the semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, Telefónica Germany – the list is long. 

Munich’s major tech companies

Munich’s IT sector in figures

socially insured jobs in the city and region

percent of all Munich employees

companies

Digital start-up scene

Munich’s outstanding university and research environment, complete with entrepreneurship centers and talented young employees, has helped create a particularly successful start-up scene. Financing for the scene almost quadrupled from 2020 to 2021.

The strongest segment was enterprise software, which attracted investment of €1.5 billion. Particularly strong and internationally renowned Munich “scale ups” include Personio and the “decacorn” Celonis.

  • Startups and new business

    Munich’s startup scene benefits from a tried-and-true network of successful major corporations, established startups, and an excellent university and research environment full of outstanding minds and institutional supporters.

    sechs Start-up Mitarbeiter*innen in einem Büro

The strengths of Munich’s ICT industry

Embedded systems, AI and security technology are strongly represented in Munich. However, the broad spectrum of application areas is above all thanks to Munich’s many different sectors featuring numerous global players. Quantum technology (see below) has become a focus point since 2021. 

The ICT service sector – software, data, IT services and e-commerce – has long enjoyed dynamic growth (currently 157,554 socially insured jobs, 47,180 of which were created in the last ten years). Digitalization is key to this growth, as major sectors like automotive and banking seek specialized applications and advice. Like everywhere in Europe, the construction parts, components and manufacturing sectors in Munich have faced difficulties recently, but the majority of sectors are still growing.  

The strong application sectors in Munich – automotive, aerospace engineering, medical technology, optical technologies – make intensive use of embedded systems to operate machines and devices and guide processes. This is also why the new start-up superstar Celonis is based here. The young company is in international demand for its process mining, which enables continuous optimization of digital processes.

The Munich Quantum Valley research initiative was launched in 2021 by the Bavarian State Government / Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW), the Max Planck Society (MPG), the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG), the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), and the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Since then, Munich Quantum Valley e.V. and the MCQST – Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology, have been carrying out quantum science research, development, and training in Munich. Funding of 300 million Euros within 10 years is provided by the Free State of Bavaria. More funds are applied for from the German Federal Government. The Leibniz Supercomputing Center and the Walther Meißner Institute in Garching near Munich, home to the supercomputer SuperMUC, are also involved in plans for future quantum computers.

Both public and private initiatives are promoting digitalization and cooperation among stakeholders. Examples in Munich include the Center for Digitalization.Bayern (ZD.B), the organizations Isarnetz e.V. and Digitale Stadt München e.V., and the Münchner Unternehmer Kreis IT for IT companies. Bayern Innovativ – the “Gesellschaft für Innovation und Wissenstransfer mbH” (Society for Innovation and Knowledge Transfer) also plays a key role in promoting innovation and digitalization in the ICT sector.

Munich hosts many national and international ICT-related events, including

  • DLD (Digital Life Design) Conference
  • Münchner Webwoche
  • OOP
  • IM.TOP
  • TDWI Munich
  • Command Control
  • 48forward Festival
  • Internet World
  • Moonova (previously Internet World Expo)
  • All Facebook Marketing Conference and All Influencer Marketing Conference
  • Bits & Pretzels, the “leading German founders festival”
  • AWE Europe AR+VR Conference & Expo – world’s largest augmented and virtual reality event
  • Online B2B Conference
  • Data Driven Marketing Conference
  • MobileTech Conference, the leading conference for mobile technologies in German-speaking countries
  • Conference on Quantum Information Processing (QIP)
  •  

The expansion of the city’s fiber-optic network is progressing rapidly. The SWM in cooperation with M-met created an excellent starting position thanks to significant investment, while since summer 2021 Telekom has also been involved with an investment program of around €500 million until the year 2030.

Today Munich already has about 1,500 mobile base stations. Another 150 to 200 are planned for the city.  A market survey carried out in 2022 showed that Munich's mobile communications network, although not at the top of the list of major German cities, is still at a very good level.

Further information and contact

Department of Labor and Economic Development - munich business

Eva Puckner