When Bernd Wagner walks through his new company's headquarters, he can barely contain his enthusiasm. He starts rattling off figures like "seven times as much steel as was used to build the Eiffel Tower" or "cables stretching all the way to Naples."

Wagner is responsible for cloud business and sales at Schwarz Digits. All that steel and cabling has gone into the new head office, which will officially open on July 21, 2026.

The campus, designed for 3,500 employees and complete with a daycare center, restaurant and fitness facilities, is reminiscent of the headquarters of Amazon, Apple, or Google.

Perched on a hillside, five multi-story curved glass buildings in a honeycomb arrangement surround a small pond at the center of the so-called "Schwarz Digits Campus," with plenty of greenery and shaded benches. "This is a statement," says Wagner. "We don't have to hide from Google or anyone else."

From supermarkets to digitalization

The new offices, however, are not located in California, but in Bad Friedrichshall — a small town in southern Germany. It is not far from Heilbronn, the hometown of Wagner's boss, who is arguably Germany's wealthiest individual.

Dieter Schwarz, now 86 years old. It was from Heilbronn that he built his supermarket empire. Now, more than 600,000 people worldwide work for companies under the Schwarz Group umbrella.

The conglomerate grew large primarily through its Lidl and Kaufland supermarket chains. But because the Schwarz Group prefers to keep everything in house, it has expanded in all directions: food production, waste management, recycling — and now digitalization.

Last year, the Schwarz Group generated nearly €185 billion (€162 billion) in revenue, more than SAP, Mercedes, or Bayer. In Germany, only the automaker Volkswagen made more money than Schwarz.

The Schwarz Group has long had a reputation for secrecy. Its founder is rarely discussed publicly. To this day, hardly any photographs of Schwarz exist. Some reports say he can walk freely around Heilbronn without being recognized.

Betting on Germany as a business location

Now the Schwarz Group is making headlines with a new story — one about digital independence and Germany as a hub for innovation. "If you're not at the table, you end up on the menu," says Wagner from his air-conditioned office.

Schwarz Digits has spent recent years primarily managing the IT infrastructure of some 14,500 supermarkets worldwide. Now, the company is now offering its cloud and security solutions to businesses and government agencies as well.

The goal, says Wagner, is to ensure that Germany and Europe regain their seat at the table and are no longer entirely dependent on technology from the United States or China: "We want to restore Europe's ability to act."

It is a strategy that is clearly in tune with the times. The company is currently winning one major contract after another. Its clients and partners include the Dutch government, various German ministries, and the German Football Association (DFB).

In the Spreewald region, about an hour's drive south of Berlin, Schwarz Digits is building a data center. At €11 billion, it represents the single largest investment in the company's history.

How much the new headquarters in Bad Friedrichshall cost remains undisclosed. What is clear is that the facility is intended to attract and retain IT talent. The message is straightforward: Why move to the expensive Silicon Valley when you can steer the future right here in southern Germany?

Heilbronn transforms into a knowledge city

Billionaire Schwarz learned early that success depends on people, talent and education. The Dieter Schwarz Foundation has been active since 1999, with a focus on education, science, research and entrepreneurship. Anyone strolling through Heilbronn can see how the talents of tomorrow are being cultivated here.

One example is the Education Campus of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, where numerous German research institutions train around 8,000 students — with plans to significantly expand that number.

Not far away stands the Experimenta, which bills itself as Germany's largest science center. Visitors can experience artificial intelligence and technology firsthand. The Experimenta has become both the city's landmark and a major tourist attraction.

Heilbronn's mayor, Harry Mergel, helped initiate the construction of the Experimenta 20 years ago, when he held a different civic role. One of the major funders at the time was the Dieter Schwarz Foundation.

Mergel has been mayor of the city of more than 130,000 residents since 2014. He, too, speaks sparingly about Schwarz, the prominent patron who continues to live in the city and prefers to stay out of the spotlight. "Everyone has the right to anonymity," Mergel says.

Mega-Project: Artificial Intelligence Campus

There is, however, one thing he is willing to share: "The Schwarz Group and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation play a decisive role in Heilbronn's transformation into a knowledge city," Mergel says at his office in Heilbronn's city hall.

That transformation is already visible. Heilbronn, which residents once half-jokingly nicknamed "Heilbronx," now ranks among the cities with the highest purchasing power in Germany in some surveys. An influx of Indian and Chinese residents also suggests that IT jobs are drawing people to the city.

Then there is a major project that is set to raise the city's international profile further in the coming years. With the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence — known as IPAI — Heilbronn is aiming to compete with cities like London and Paris.

Up to 5,000 people are expected to work and conduct research on the site just outside the city; the first buildings are scheduled to open in 2027. Here, too, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation and the Schwarz Group are key players.

The project's total costs have not been disclosed. The AI innovation park has been operating as a network since 2022, and around 140 companies and partners are now working on AI projects in Heilbronn.

While no one yet knows how quickly AI will develop, Mergel says, "there will be no company, no industry, and no public administration that can remain competitive without [it]." The IPAI is therefore "something like an insurance policy for the region," Mergel, whose term runs until 2030 says, adding: "The future is being built in Heilbronn."

'We Are Here to Stay'

From Heilbronn's city hall, it takes just a 15-minute drive to the Schwarz Digits headquarters. There, a cooking robot prepares six different dishes around the clock for the IT talent.

"This region will soon become the largest AI hub in Germany and in Europe," says Wagner with conviction. Schwarz Digits, he believes, will be at the center of it.

But can the company truly compete with the tech giants? Amazon, for instance, generated $135 billion in cloud revenue alone last year. Schwarz Digits, across all its activities, brings in a mere €2.2 billion.

"We are here to stay," Wagner says confidently. The opportunities, he argues, will come from the market itself as Germany and Europe urgently need independent IT solutions.

Wagner's appeal to digital sovereignty sounds, at times, a little like a PR strategy. Yet his boss, Schwarz has proven more than once that he has both the staying power and the instincts to back the right horse.

The Schwarz Group is now the largest retailer in Europe and the fourth largest in the world. It is entirely possible, then, that Germany's richest man will ultimately win his big tech bet.

This piece was originally published in German.