This year’s CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany will feature a huge presence from China, and a large data center hall, to celebrate the resurgence of the tech industry and a shift towards business-to-business (B2B) technology.

Data centers will take up residence in Hall 12 courtesy of Datacenter Dynamics, which will combine the DCD Converged event with Europe’s largest IT event for the first time this year. Meanwhile, China will be the “strongest partner company ever” for the  long-running show, members of the press heard in Hannover this week.

Representatives of China, CeBIT and the German trade body Bitkom all praised the new growth in technology-related business, in particular data-centric technology. As is traditional for ceBIT, the idea was wrapped up in a newly-created word: this year, it’s “d!conomy” (pronounced “deeconomy”).

IT world in growth mode

“Whoever stands in the way of this development [technology] will be run over,” said the Chinese Ambassador to Berlin (pictured here), according to sumultaneous translation.

The ambassador flagged 2015 as the year of Sino-German co-operation, and promised this would be the focus at CeBIT, which will be opened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Deputy Prime Minister of China.

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba will give a keynote, and a Chinese booth bigger than 2000 square metres will focus on innovation, convergence and co-operation.

IT sales are increasing, Prof Dieter Kempf, president of Bitkom told the event, and the last quarter of 2014 was the best the sector has seen for a very long time indeed. “Two thirds of IT companies are hiring, and only five percent expect to decline in size,” he said.

Despite a shift to B2B, and a very welcome recognition of data centers, CeBIT continues to stake out its role as the major “horizontal” show, covering all areas of technology, including the social and political implications.

Oliver Frese of the CeBIT board said “no other event brings together all the stake holders,” promising an “exchange between industry, politics, the scientific community and the media” which would address issues including privacy and security.

Other speakers will include the media pundits Glenn  Greenwald and Jeremy Rifkin.