The organizers of the Hannover Messe pulled off a real coup this year: Never before had a US president opened the world's largest industrial technology fair. And it seems pretty likely that a visit to the capital of the German state of Lower Saxony would never have been on the agenda for a man often described as the world's most powerful.

More than a few people smiled wearily when Wolfram von Fritsch first suggested the idea. But the head of the international trade fair organizer Deutsche Messe is the person who is smiling now. His plan worked. The appearance of US President Barack Obama hasn't just made Hanover a place of global media interest for a couple of days: It has also lent new prestige to the industrial technology fair.

The increased attention has allowed the world's two leading industrial nations, the United States and Germany, to show - and impressively so - what production will look like in the future. But more about that later.