Lukas Beckenbauer delivers keynote at the IGF Congress 2026 in Berlin

The congress explored research's practical application for SMEs. Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the DLR project management agency opened the event, held at the agency's premises. Two keynotes provided the first expert perspectives.

Addressing AI and knowledge sovereignty in this setting matters to us. The questions we work on belong in direct conversation with research, industry, and policy. The invitation to deliver one of the two keynotes was a special opportunity to contribute to that exchange.

Beckenbauer put forward a clear argument: AI infrastructure influences how knowledge is presented and how it subsequently informs decisions. Architecture therefore helps determine companies' future ability to act independently.

For Germany's Mittelstand, this is a practical concern. Its most valuable knowledge often lies in decades of experience, specialised production processes, and long-standing customer relationships. AI agents need to use that knowledge productively, even when it is distributed across documents, business systems, and departments. Companies must also retain control over it.

In his keynote, Beckenbauer argued that knowledge sovereignty needs to be built into the infrastructure. He emphasised three requirements:

• Clear access rights: Companies determine which knowledge is accessible to particular people and for particular tasks.
• Verifiable answers: Original sources must be identifiable, and the basis of AI recommendations must be open to independent review.
• Open, adaptable architectures: Companies should be able to change providers and evolve their systems while keeping data and processes under their control.

In his recap, Beckenbauer describes subsequent discussions with representatives of Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the DLR project management agency, and IGF. Their shared question: How can we create foundations that allow companies in Germany and Europe to use AI economically while preserving their independence?

IGF itself offers an important starting point: companies and research organisations generate knowledge together while remaining independent. Beckenbauer argued that this principle can also inform AI infrastructure. The congress provided a setting to discuss that connection with people working across research, business, and policy.

Beckenbauer researches AI and decentralised systems as a doctoral candidate at the Technical University of Munich. The programme also lists his involvement in IGF's project on AI in customer interaction. That experience informs his perspective on enterprise AI.

He and his team are already working to automatically translate distributed company knowledge into secure, usable context for AI systems. For us at daeo, his appearance in Berlin is a special opportunity to highlight this focus: productive AI grounded in a company's own knowledge, with traceable sources and control over its infrastructure.

We are delighted by the invitation and the open exchange at the IGF Congress 2026. These conversations bring Europe's AI debate into the collaboration between research and business where it can have a practical impact.