News › Top­ping-out cerem­ony for the new ZEISS high-tech site in Jena

An important mile­stone for the region and the ZEISS con­s­truc­tion project

On May 13, 2025, the top­ping-out cerem­ony for the new ZEISS high-tech site in Jena took place with repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from ZEISS, the city of Jena and the Free State of Thu­rin­gia coming tog­e­ther to cele­brate this signi­fi­cant milestone.

Andreas Pecher, Pre­si­dent and CEO of the ZEISS Group, wel­co­med the guests to the future site and spoke about the stra­te­gic importance of Jena and the con­s­truc­tion pro­ject for the com­pany and the region: »Jena and the high-tech site are a sym­bol of change at ZEISS and thus a role model for all other sites. It com­bi­nes both inno­va­tion and trans­for­ma­tion«. A new buil­ding com­plex with around 118,000 square meters of floor space is expec­ted to be com­ple­ted by the end of 2026. Accor­ding to Pecher, ZEISS is thus under­li­ning the importance of Jena for its own com­pany and pro­vi­ding important impe­tus for the attrac­ti­ve­ness of the loca­tion, espe­ci­ally for inter­na­tio­nal science. 

With around 3,500 employees, Jena is the second lar­gest ZEISS loca­tion world­wide. The invest­ment in the foun­ding site is the­r­e­fore an inte­gral part of ZEISS‹ glo­bal invest­ment stra­tegy and fol­lows on seam­lessly from a series of inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and moder­niza­tion pro­jects in Ger­many, Europe and Asia. 

Group photo of the people invited to the topping-out ceremony of the HTSJ
f.l.t.r. Marc Wei­mann (Over­all Pro­ject Mana­ger HTSJ), Dr. Jochen Peter (Board Mem­ber of the Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch divi­sion), Andreas Pecher (Chair­man of the Exe­cu­tive Board of the ZEISS Group), Prof. Dr. Mario Voigt (Minis­ter Pre­si­dent of the Free State of Thu­rin­gia), Colette Boos-John (Minis­ter for Eco­no­mic Affairs, Agri­cul­ture and Rural Areas of the Free State of Thu­rin­gia), Dirk Lange (Head of the Depart­ment for Urban Deve­lo­p­ment and Envi­ron­ment Jena), Michael Kel­ler (Mana­ging Direc­tor & Archi­tect Nething Gene­ral­pla­ner GmbH) and Dr. Felix Strei­ter (Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Carl Zeiss Foundation)

Stra­te­gic importance for Thuringia

In his wel­co­ming address, the Minis­ter Pre­si­dent said that the new ZEISS high-tech site in Jena marked a mile­stone for Thu­rin­gia. With this signi­fi­cant invest­ment, ZEISS is not only sen­ding a strong signal in the field of inno­va­tion, but is also crea­ting future-proof jobs. »The loca­tion streng­thens our com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness and con­firms that Thu­rin­gia is an attrac­tive and relia­ble part­ner for high-tech companies.« 

Jena’s Head of Urban Deve­lo­p­ment and Envi­ron­ment, Dirk Lange, also spoke about the signi­fi­cance for Jena in his wel­co­ming address: »One of our tasks as a city in gene­ral is to create the best pos­si­ble con­di­ti­ons for Jena as a busi­ness loca­tion and, in par­ti­cu­lar, to do ever­y­thing we can to sup­port com­pa­nies like ZEISS in their growth. ZEISS is sen­ding a clear signal with this exem­plary invest­ment in the city, for which we are extre­mely grateful!«

Vir­tual tour of the buil­ding shell and erec­tion of the top­ping-out wreath

The guests were taken on a vir­tual jour­ney around and through the shell of the high-tech site with a drone and were thus able to expe­ri­ence the dimen­si­ons of the building.
The tra­di­tio­nal hois­ting of the top­ping-out wreath with a crane sym­bo­li­zed the suc­cessful com­ple­tion of the shell con­s­truc­tion phase and was the high­light of the event.
The top­ping-out wreath was pre­viously tied by the mem­bers of the pro­ject team and their children.

Press cont­act

Bea­trice Weinberger

Cor­po­rate Brand, Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and Public Affairs
ZEISS Group

About ZEISS

ZEISS is one of the worl­d’s lea­ding tech­no­logy com­pa­nies in the opti­cal and opto­elec­tro­nic indus­try. In the four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets, the ZEISS Group most recently gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue of around 11 bil­lion euros (Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024). 

ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch as well as medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and the­rapy in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery for its cus­to­mers. ZEISS also stands for the worl­d’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. ZEISS bran­ded pro­ducts such as spec­ta­cle len­ses, pho­to­gra­phic len­ses and bino­cu­lars are sought-after and trend­set­ters worldwide. 

With a port­fo­lio geared towards future growth areas such as digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Indus­try 4.0 and a strong brand, ZEISS is hel­ping to shape tech­no­lo­gi­cal pro­gress and is advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted areas with its solu­ti­ons. The basis for the suc­cess and fur­ther con­ti­nuous expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket lea­der­ship is the sus­tained high level of expen­dit­ure on rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment. ZEISS invests 15% of its reve­nue in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment work – this high level of expen­dit­ure has a long tra­di­tion at ZEISS and is also an invest­ment in the future. 

With more than 46,000 employees, ZEISS is active in around 50 count­ries with more than 60 sales and ser­vice loca­ti­ons, around 40 rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment loca­ti­ons and 35 pro­duc­tion sites world­wide (Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024). The head­quar­ters of the com­pany, which was foun­ded in Jena in 1846, is loca­ted in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The sole owner of the parent com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG, is the Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest Ger­man foun­da­ti­ons for the pro­mo­tion of science. 

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.de

 

ZEISS in Jena

All four divi­si­ons are repre­sen­ted at the Jena site: Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solu­ti­ons, the Pla­ne­ta­rium divi­sion and ZEISS‹ cen­tral rese­arch depart­ment. Jena is also the head­quar­ters of the ZEISS Group’s cen­tral ser­vice com­pany for pro­duc­tion services. 

May 15th, 2025

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