Shaping the Future with AI: Deep Tech Award Finalists 2025 Spotlight

As Berlin celebrates ten years of the Deep Tech Award – an accolade that has grown into a key indicator of Germany’s innovation capacity – the 2025 finalists from the field of artificial intelligence represent the beating heart of European AI and engineering ingenuity. These three companies are not just building new tools; they’re reshaping global industries with deep tech solutions that address real-world challenges in healthcare, agriculture, and engineering. By fusing AI with domain-specific expertise, these Berlin-based innovators offer a preview of a smarter, more resilient future.

Growing Smarter: Hexafarms and the Reinvention of Agriculture with AI

At Hexafarms, the roots of innovation are deeply personal. CEO David Ahmed’s journey began above a New York City food market, where daily food waste inspired him to start growing produce in his college dorm room. Years later, that dorm-room farm evolved into an AI-driven startup headquartered in Berlin, aiming to transform the future of food production.

Hexafarms develops a new generation of computer vision-based AI tools that help growers monitor and optimize indoor farming operations. Built in close collaboration with agricultural producers, their platform is designed to increase precision, efficiency, and sustainability by reducing pesticide usage and resource waste in a sector where nearly 30% of output is typically lost.

The company sees its mission in equipping the entire food supply chain with the world’s most advanced tools. As the team puts it: “We want to pull the entire food supply chain to a place where they can operate with the world’s most sophisticated technology.” CEO Ahmed adds: “Being named as a finalist makes us proud to be part of the Berlin startup ecosystem and we are humbled that we are seen as a company that is poised to change the way we produce food.”

With food demand expected to exceed historical levels by 2050, Hexafarms offers a scalable solution to one of the most pressing global issues. The team credits Berlin’s thriving AI ecosystem and strong network of innovators as crucial to their success.

Listening to Lives: Noah Labs Turns Voice into a Diagnostic Superpower

What if your voice could help detect heart failure? That’s the question driving Noah Labs, a Berlin-based healthtech company using artificial intelligence to reshape the management of chronic diseases.

Founded by a team with clinical and AI expertise, Noah Labs started with an observation: patients with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) – a chronic condition in which the heart struggles to pump blood effectively – often show subtle voice changes before symptoms escalate. CHF is one of the leading causes of hospitalization, affecting over 22 million people across Europe and the U.S.

Noah Labs uses AI to analyze voice data via mobile devices, offering non-invasive, affordable diagnostics that deliver real-time health insights. The team believes this approach could significantly reduce hospitalizations and improve patient outcomes.

“Our vision is to build the new frontier of technology that allows 10x better diagnostics and monitoring of chronic conditions in cardiovascular and beyond utilizing voice as a biomarker,” says CEO Oliver Piepenstock.
He continues: “Being shortlisted as a finalist for the Deep Tech Award is a tremendous honor and an exciting recognition of the work we do every day with our partners to improve the lives of patients.”

Berlin’s ecosystem – with institutions like Charité, AI funding programs, and access to international talent – has proven ideal for Noah Labs’ development and growth.

Bridging Research and Reality: Berlin-Based IANUS and the Rise of Simulation-Driven AI

If deep tech is about unlocking the full potential of advanced technologies, Berlin-based IANUS Simulation embodies this mission. Founded by a team of researchers and engineers determined to bridge the gap between academic innovation and practical application, IANUS was created to ensure that groundbreaking ideas don’t remain confined to the lab.

Though originally spun out of the Technical University of Dortmund, IANUS has found its operational home in Berlin – a city they describe as ideal for scaling their vision. From this base, the company has developed ECOTWIN, a simulation-driven AI platform that leverages both cloud and edge computing to generate, train, and deploy intelligent systems tailored to industrial, scientific, and public sector needs.

“Our mission has been clear: to transform promising research into practical deep tech solutions that are accessible to everyone,” the team explains. “We want to break down barriers and democratize access to advanced technologies.”

The societal impact of ECOTWIN is significant. As the team puts it: “Being shortlisted as a finalist for the Deep Tech Award is a tremendous honor for our entire ECOTWIN team. This recognition means more than just acknowledging a project: it celebrates years of passionate, persistent work.”

The platform creates synthetic, physics-based training data for highly specialized AI systems and deploys them at the edge for real-time applications – from industrial optimization to natural hazard monitoring. With its open architecture and expert network, IANUS is fostering digital sovereignty and broader access to simulation-powered AI across Europe.

Berlin: A Launchpad for Purpose-Driven Innovation

This year’s Deep Tech Award finalists are united by more than their technological achievements. They share a vision that artificial intelligence should serve people, not just markets. Whether it’s helping farmers meet rising food demands, empowering patients to manage chronic conditions, or enabling cities to adapt to climate uncertainty, these Berlin startups demonstrate how deep tech can drive meaningful, scalable impact.

They also reflect the strength of Berlin’s innovation ecosystem: a place where research becomes application, where collaboration thrives, and where bold ideas are transformed into real-world solutions. As the Deep Tech Award marks its tenth anniversary, the 2025 finalists show us that the future isn’t just being imagined in Berlin – it’s already being built here.