You Can't Cut Yourself to Glory"- KUKA CEO Christoph Schell on Germany's Crisis, China & Physical AI (#38)

Ten years ago, Midea acquired KUKA, and Germany feared its
robotics champion would lose its identity.


Today Christoph Schell, who grew up in Germany but spent the last
28 years in the US at HP and Intel, runs the company from
California, and argues the Chinese takeover is the reason KUKA is
still around.


One year into the CEO role, he explains why Germany's decline
started 15 years ago and nobody noticed, why "physical AI"
matters more than robotics, and why winning in China is now the
key to winning anywhere.


He closes with a direct appeal to German Mittelstand companies:
stop guarding your data and start pooling it, because that's the
only way to build the AI models that keep German manufacturing
competitive.