Europe’s semiconductor ambitions need an ecosystem approach
CSC supports the objectives of the Chips Act 2.0 proposal to strengthen Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem, reduce strategic dependencies, and enhance Europe’s technological sovereignty. Semiconductors are foundational to Europe’s competitiveness, serving as key enablers of AI, HPC and other strategic capabilities. Strengthening Europe’s position across the semiconductor value chain is therefore essential for innovation, resilience, and long-term economic competitiveness.
RDI and competence development lay the foundation for European leadership in the field of semiconductors. They must be supported by a rich ecosystem that includes e.g. the EuroHPC resources. For example, AI Factories must not only be seen as users of chips but also as excellent platforms for chip design as well as for accumulation of related skills and competences. By engaging in semiconductor development AI Factories will also gain insight into future industry needs that can be used to steer the next steps of EU semiconductor strategy.
Bringing AI Factories to the core of Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem requires increased coordination between the two key Joint Undertakings: EuroHPC JU and Chips JU. It must be ensured that their strategic priorities align and the projects they fund complement each other. However, the two JUs must remain separate to allow both to develop sufficiently deep expertise in their respective fields.
While it is crucial to continue investing in world-class RDI for chips development, we are pleased to note that Chips Act 2.0 also aims to pay increased attention to boosting chips production. Indeed, the main bottleneck of Europe’s technological sovereignty is often at the lab-to-fab juncture and semiconductors are no exception in this regard. Therefore, we welcome the measures that aim to scale European RDI excellence in the field of semiconductors up to competitive commercial production. It is particularly important to ensure a sufficient volume of pilot lines and incentivise investments in the semiconductor sector.
While it is important to reduce dependencies by boosting Europe’s own semiconductor production, it must be acknowledged that to build world-class systems Europe needs world-class chips that are not necessarily produced in Europe. It is thus important to apply the principles of the overall tech sovereignty package to the Chips Act as well: Europe must build its own capabilities, however accepting that this will not happen very rapidly and thus Europe should remain open and committed to international cooperation. At the same time, Europe should be consistent in strengthening its own skills base and committing to European values as basis for technological development.
All in all, the new Chips Act must aim to strike a good balance between boosting RDI and manufacturing, European production and international cooperation as well as managing temporary shortages of supply and building long-term competitiveness and tech sovereignty. The definitions of semiconductors and chips must also be broad enough to capture all relevant technologies, particularly given the increasing strategic importance of memory circuits relative to processor chips in the age of AI, cloud computing, and data economy.
The new Chips Act must also be closely linked to the EU’s overall tech sovereignty framework, which includes computing and AI capacity, data management and network connectivity. Building European competence requires a stronger horizontal approach to building European capabilities, and thus all parallel initiatives must be developed as an ecosystem, not as separate entities. To support such a horizontal approach, governance structures must also become more horizontal, bridging the silos between the key players implementing the tech sovereignty agenda.
Read more
Contact
Irina Kupiainen
Irina Kupiainen is responsible for CSC’s public affairs.