Summit 2026: what German industry and the Bajío put on the table

On Wednesday 2 September 2026, from 09:00 to 13:30, the auditorium of the G100 building at Guanajuato Puerto Interior hosted the Smart and Sustainable Industry Summit 2026. It was convened by PAGSID — the cooperation project of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) — and brought into one room the German industry established in Mexico, state authorities, business organisations, and the suppliers aiming to enter those value chains.

The format was executive and closed: four and a half hours, one keynote, three panels and two networking windows, with registration from 08:30.

It was not a forum for institutional speeches. It was the public launch of a Germany–Mexico industrial cooperation platform built to outlast the PAGSID project itself, and the agenda was assembled around three decisions Bajío plants already have in front of them: who they source from, how they solve their energy supply, and what they do with artificial intelligence on the production floor.

This post keeps the full record of the day, which until now lived on the event page.

The day, hour by hour

Time	Block
08:30 – 09:00	Registration and networking reception
09:00 – 10:00	Opening ceremony and institutional remarks
10:00 – 10:20	Keynote — Germany and Mexico as strategic partners
10:20 – 11:00	Panel 1 · Sustainable supply chains
11:00 – 12:00	Panel 2 · Industrial energy transition
12:00 – 12:40	Panel 3 · AI and smart manufacturing
12:40 – 13:00	Closing reflections
13:00 – 13:30	Close and networking

Venue: G100 Auditorium, 4th floor — Guanajuato Puerto Interior, Silao de la Victoria, Guanajuato.

Institutional opening

The opening ceremony brought together Friedolin Strack, Co-Director of International Affairs at the Federation of German Industries (BDI); Juan José Sierra Álvarez, President of COPARMEX Nacional; Johannes Hügel, Representative in Mexico of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS); and Alejandro Hernández Fonseca, Under-Secretary for Investment Attraction at the State of Guanajuato’s Ministry of Economy. Joachim Elsässer of PAGSID moderated.

What each panel actually put on the table

Sustainable supply chains · 10:20 – 11:00

The real subject was not sustainability as narrative, but the criteria a German buyer uses to qualify and select suppliers in Mexico: traceability, quality, documentary compliance, and the ability to hold the standard over time. On the panel: Brenda Pinedo (Supplier Quality Learning Business Partner, AUMOVIO), Rodrigo Arciniegas (Director, Catch Consulting) and Adolfo Rivera (Commercial and Operations Director, Palco Logistics). The block included the presentation of the Catalogue by Germán Bonilla Bermúdez (PAGSID).

For a Mexican company trying to enter a tier 1 chain, those forty minutes were the most actionable part of the day.

Industrial energy transition · 11:00 – 12:00

With an opening address by Johannes Hügel (KAS). Speakers: Jorge Marcial Islas Samperio, Under-Secretary for Planning and Energy Transition at the Ministry of Energy; Patrice Rimond, Director of Electrification and Automation at Siemens; and Sebastián Rodríguez Sánchez, Chief Executive Officer of Bajío Ventures. Moderated by Germán Bonilla (PAGSID).

The underlying conversation was about cost and timing: firm capacity availability, interconnection lead times, self-supply, storage, and — the point usually missing from these panels — how all of it gets financed when the project sits inside an industrial park rather than in a generation portfolio.

AI and smart manufacturing · 12:00 – 12:40

Selene Diez Reyes (CEO, Forte Innovation Consulting), David López (Partner Director for Intel in Latin America) and Bernd Rohde (CEO, IGECO), moderated by Nanghelly Silva Anzaldúa, President of the Innovation Commission of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). Applied Industry 4.0, data and advanced computing cases on the production floor — not laboratory prototypes.

Closing reflections · 12:40 – 13:00

Héctor López Santillana, General Director of Guanajuato Puerto Interior, and Friedolin Strack (BDI) closed the day with the park’s and German industry’s shared view of long-term cooperation.

The Catalogue: 61 vetted Mexican suppliers

The first panel included the launch of the Catalogue of Best Practices and Sustainable Suppliers: 61 Mexican companies assessed against sustainability and performance criteria, in a format meant for a procurement team to use as a starting point rather than as a decorative directory. In practice, it is the most tangible deliverable the Summit produced.

What the Summit set out to do

The convening set eight stated objectives:

• Launch the new platform for long-term Germany–Mexico industrial cooperation, beyond the PAGSID project.
• Strengthen strategic dialogue among industry leaders, government and the innovation ecosystem.
• Showcase best practices: real cases of sustainable industrial transformation in Germany and Mexico.
• Promote collaboration on sustainable supply chains, industrial decarbonisation and digital transformation.
• Accelerate technology adoption of solutions that raise industrial competitiveness.
• Foster alliances among companies, investors, technology providers and academic institutions.
• Position the Bajío as a leading hub for sustainable industrial innovation and advanced manufacturing.
• Present the Catalogue as a practical supplier-development tool.

Why we took part

Our reading of the Bajío is simple: industrial demand is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is energy — firm capacity, interconnection lead times and cost structure — and the ability to assemble a financeable package around it.

The region holds close to 14.4 million m² of industrial inventory across five states and accounted for roughly 30% of the country’s new industrial construction starts in early 2026. Our territorial layer covers 162 industrial parks in Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco, Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí, with demand profile, installed capacity and observed supply constraints. That is the material we brought to the energy panel.

What we contribute is origination and structuring: turning a plant’s operating need into a USD 5–50M project a capital partner can evaluate. We are not developers, and we do not hold permits.

What remains after the Summit

Three data points decide whether there is a project, and the plant operator holds all three:

1. Consumption profile. Contracted demand, load curve and average bill over the last twelve months. Without it, any energy conversation stays at the level of generalities.
2. The sourcing gap. Which certification or capability is missing to qualify with a German buyer. The Catalogue answers precisely that question.
3. The date. When the capacity is needed. That date determines the technology, the structure, and whether the project is financeable at all.

Press and Catalogue follow-up: Germán Bonilla — g.bonilla@pa-bdi.eu