Successful worldwide, at home in Thuringia.

Thuringia is proud of its companies: More than a hundred of them count among the Hidden Champions of Thuringia. As world market and technology leaders, they impress in high-tech niches that are decisive for our future. With their know-how, they teach laypeople to marvel at which ideas from our state are in demand worldwide – from highly precise mirrors in NASA space probes to cutting and spraying machines for pieces of cream cake. With the Hidden Champions Thuringia campaign, we bring the companies to where they absolutely belong – into the spotlight on the big stage.

Or onto the roof: Just like in May 2026 at the fourth ChampionsMEET in Apolda. The Eiermann building – an impressive industrial building in Bauhaus style, where fire extinguishers were once developed – provided the appropriate setting to incorporate three new world and technology leaders into the family of Hidden Champions . With this we send a clear signal: Look here. Discover with us what lies in this country and its companies.

This very perspective seems more important than ever in light of geopolitical and economic upheavals: The world is in greater flux than expected, and it demands from many companies an industrial transformation that is more than challenging. The breaking up of familiar structures and disruptions require constant change – yet at the same time, they represent an opportunity: For innovations and ideas that prevail.  

How companies turn these innovations into economic success, and what they need for it, is impressively demonstrated by all those companies that we, as LEG Thüringen together with the Ministry of Economics, make visible within the framework of the campaign “Hidden Champions Thüringen”.

OptiX fab GmbH from Jena is one of a total of three companies that were recently awarded in Apolda. Torsten Feigl and his team manufacture high-precision IOV mirrors. They are an essential component for the high-tech chips of today and tomorrow. Moreover, they are indispensable for exploring the universe: NASA relies on mirrors from OptiX fab for observing the sun in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength range.

And a little further east, in the rather rural Korbußen near Greiz, one would hardly suspect a company that is globally successful with what it does. BIKAR Aerospace proves the opposite: Already in its third generation, the family company manufactures aluminum semi-finished products and cut-to-size pieces that must meet the highest requirements. Since 2016, the company has been a sought-after and certified supplier to the aerospace industry.  

"Germany and the country's companies thrive on creating innovations and driving development forward. That is why it is good that there are campaigns like 'Hidden Champions Thüringen' that make this visible. For us, the award is also a great recognition of our work and an incentive to keep at it," explains Dr. Jonas B. Weber, Head of Digital Innovation at Bikar Aerospace.

Every company we identify as part of the campaign undergoes a multi-layered quality process at our end, through which we determine where and how a company is successful and truly a global market leader in its field. This was also the case for Paceteq, the third company we will honor in 2026. Based in Leinefelde-Worbis, Paceteq specializes in AI-supported real-time data analysis and performance intelligence in professional sports and the automotive industry, and is in demand worldwide, not just by Formula 1 teams. This shows: While Thuringia's cities with high-tech optics hotspots like Jena or Erfurt attract companies, the Free State offers a perfect ecosystem for world-class standards just as well in its central areas or along its rural fringes.

More about the campaign