Hannover Messe 2024 to Spotlight Key Industrial Sector Trends

Each year, Hannover Messe highlights the latest technologies and trends for the industrial sector. Mechanical and electrical engineering, digital industry and the energy sector are just some of the disciplines put into focus during this large international event.

Hannover Messe 2024 will be centralized around the theme "Energizing a Sustainable Industry" which emphasizes the growing push toward greater sustainability within industrial applications. This includes use of more energy-efficient technologies, determining how to reduce and reuse materials and more.

Quick Facts about Hannover Messe

Hannover Messe is considered one of the top international events for the industrial sector, bringing together core portions of the market including drive engineering, automation, energy, R&D and industrial IT, among many others.

Key figures for the 2024 show include:

4,000 exhibitors who will showcase more than 14,000 products and solutions
130,000 on-site attendees of whom two-thirds are key decision makers from the industrial market
1,870 speakers will present on topics related to the industrial sector.

Learn more about the various technologies and trends featured at past shows:

As such, a number of companies will exhibit products which help companies to meet their various sustainability goals.

Besides the overall theme of sustainability, the major industry trends of automation, digitalization and electrification will be in focus as well throughout Hannover Messe 2024.

Major Themes of Hannover Messe

The trade fair, which runs from April 22-26 in Hannover, Germany, will revolve around intelligent and carbon-neutral production, artificial intelligence (AI), hydrogen and cross-sector energy solutions.

"Visitors to Hannover Messe are looking for guidance on how they can use automation, artificial intelligence, renewable energies or hydrogen in a meaningful way," said Dr. Jochen Köckler, CEO of Deutsche Messe AG which organizes the Hannover Messe event. "This is precisely the expertise that the exhibitors at Hannover Messe can provide."

During keynote presentations at the event's trade press preview held in February, Köckler emphasized that artificial intelligence is catapulting industrial digitalization to new heights by revolutionizing industry, making processes more efficient and adding value. AI, he said, enables companies to shorten development times while saving resources and energy.

Use of robotics in the manufacturing industry is increasing, and thus will be among the many technologies showcased during Hannover Messe 2024.

"The speed at which AI solutions are finding their way into industry is breathtaking," said Köckler. "Companies need to invest now and, above all, introduce their employees to the opportunities offered by AI, otherwise they will get left behind by the competition. AI is the key to competitiveness and sustainability in industry.

"In the near future, generative AI will be able to design machines," he added. "This will lead to fundamental changes in engineers’ job profiles—a subject that will also be discussed at Hannover Messe."

This message was reinforced during a keynote by Dr. Fabian Bause, product manager TwinCAT, Beckhoff. GenAI is likely to have huge impact on both productivity and quality of knowledge work, he said.

According to Bause’s forecast for Hannover Messe 2024, delegates can expect to see advancements in three areas:

Growth in industrial-grade AI hardware — expect more computing power for AI on the shop floor
Further democratization of AI tool — easy-to-use tools for tailoring in-house industrial AI applications
More GenAI products and services — including the consolidation of agents and tools; increased robustness; and more base LLMs (large language models).

Visitors to the trade fair will witness how robots can be controlled by voice; machines that automatically recognize defects; or systems that cut downtimes through predictive maintenance.

Dr. Fabian Bause of Beckhoff Automation discussed the impacts automation and AI are having on the industrial market during the Hannover Messe 2024 press preview.

Confirmed Exhibitors to Showcase Latest Industrial Technologies

Count among exhibitors the likes of global tech giants Accenture, AWS, Bosch, DELL Technologies, Google, Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow, Schneider Electric and Siemens.

Other SME technology leaders include: Beckhoff, GP Joule, ebm-papst, Ericsson, Festo, Turck, Harting, ifm, igus, LAPP, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, Rittal, Schunk, SEW-Eurodrive, Wago, WIBU and Ziehl-Abegg.

In addition, research organizations Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and more than 300 industrial startups will tailor exhibits aligned with major themes, ranging from Industrie 4.0/Manufacturing-X, energy for industry; digitalization/artificial intelligence and machine learning; carbon-neutral production; and hydrogen and fuel cells.

Partner Country Focuses on Clean Energy and Industry 4.0

Norway is the 2024 partner country. Under the tagline, “pioneering the green industrial transition,” Norwegian companies will showcase products and solutions from a host of industries, such as hydrogen, CCS, AI and machine learning, digital infrastructure, batteries and charging infrastructure, minerals and materials technology.

These technologies are intended to demonstrate Norwegian industry’s role in the green transition.

This article originally appeared on Machine Design, an Endeavor Business Media partner site.