eco Association of the Internet Industry
eco is the association of the internet industry in Germany and was founded in 1995 by a group of internet pioneers under the name Electronic Commerce Forum. With around 1,000 member companies, eco calls itself the largest association of the internet industry in Europe. Its members run networks, data centers, cloud and hosting services and domains, from small regional providers to global cloud groups.
eco speaks for its members toward German and European policy makers and works on rules for networks, data protection, IT security and artificial intelligence. Through its subsidiary DE-CIX, which operates the internet exchange in Frankfurt, eco is also part of the industry it represents. The association runs a complaints office for illegal online content and organizes conferences on data centers and security.
Members and membership
The around 1,000 members of eco include global cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Cloudflare and data center operators such as Equinix, Digital Realty and NTT Global Data Centers. Members from the financial sector include the IT service providers Finanz Informatik Technologie Service and Sparkassen-IT, the credit agency SCHUFA and the House of Finance of Goethe University Frankfurt.
Most members are network operators and hosting firms from Germany, and the member list also includes telecom companies from Austria, Slovenia, Serbia and Turkey. Members work in competence groups, such as the security group that runs the annual IT security survey of eco.
Board and managing directors
Oliver J. Süme, a lawyer, chairs the board of eco and is responsible for politics, law and regulation. Klaus Landefeld is deputy chair and responsible for infrastructure and networks, and the board also includes Silke Kanes for SaaS, diversity and corporate culture, Felix Höger for online services and cloud computing, and Norbert Pohlmann for IT security.
Alexander Rabe and Andreas Weiss are the managing directors of eco. Philipp Ehmann leads the capital city office in Berlin and the unit for politics, law and regulation, while Lars Steffen is responsible for international affairs, digital infrastructure and resilience.
DE-CIX and the internet exchange in Frankfurt
eco is the sole shareholder of DE-CIX, which was founded in 1995 and calls its exchange in Frankfurt the leading interconnection platform in the world. At DE-CIX Frankfurt more than 1,000 networks exchange data, and access is available in more than 30 data centers in the Frankfurt area. Banks can use such an exchange to reach the internet providers of their customers directly and to connect to cloud providers without a detour over the open internet.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
Data centers and digital infrastructure
The Allianz zur Stärkung digitaler Infrastrukturen works under the umbrella of eco and speaks for data center operators in politics. In June 2026 the alliance criticized the planned amendment of the German Energy Efficiency Act, arguing that a fixed operating PUE of 1.2 for data centers is impractical and puts investment at risk. A YouGov survey commissioned by the alliance found that most people in Germany support building more data centers.
The sixth Data Center Expert Summit of eco took place in June 2026 at area3 in Dreieich near Frankfurt, with experts from data centers, energy, planning, networks and public administration. The Data Center Roadshow of eco also stops in Frankfurt, which is the largest market for data centers in Germany.
AI in companies: studies and regulation
A study by IW Consult for eco, published in July 2026, estimates that AI-supported product innovations and new services already generate more than 120 billion euros in revenue. According to the study, the strength of Germany lies in industrial applications, and board chair Oliver J. Süme sees a real competitive advantage for Germany in industrial AI.
In a Civey survey of 500 companies for eco in autumn 2026, 54 percent said they already use or test AI agents, but only 5 percent would let agents make fully autonomous decisions. As safeguards, 47 percent named an automatic emergency shutdown and 45 percent a strict allocation of roles and rights. Before the transparency duties of the EU AI Act started to apply on 2 August 2026, eco called for uniform and technically workable standards and for coordinated enforcement across Europe.
Cloud, Gaia-X and digital sovereignty
eco managed the German project for the Gaia-X Federation Services, GXFS-DE, which developed open source services for identity, trust and data exchange in Gaia-X ecosystems. In July 2023 these components moved to the Eclipse Foundation, where they continue under the name XFSC, and Andreas Weiss of eco was the project manager of GXFS-DE. The association EuroCloud Deutschland also works under the umbrella of eco.
Banks meet the same questions when they move core systems to the cloud and have to keep control over their data and providers. The Gaia-X data spaces for finance and sovereign cloud offerings are two European approaches to that problem.
IT security and the complaints office
The security competence group of eco runs an annual IT security survey among companies, and in the latest edition almost a third reported noticeable consequences of cyber incidents. eco presents the topic at the Internet Security Days, which take place as part of the it-sa congress in Nuremberg.
Since 1996 the eco complaints office has checked reports of illegal online content and asked providers to remove it. In 2025 it checked 51,358 reports, found a legal violation in 30,035 cases and reached a removal rate of 98.58 percent for web content.
Offices in Cologne and Berlin
The headquarters of eco is at Lichtstraße 43h in 50825 Cologne, where the complaints office also works. The capital city office of eco is at Französische Straße 48 in 10117 Berlin and handles the political work of the association.
eco and Finance Loop
Banks and payment firms in Frankfurt run their systems in the data centers and clouds that members of eco operate, and their cloud contracts now fall under DORA. Finance Loop discusses these questions with practitioners at its events in the Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty track.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.