Europe in the Intelligent Age 2025

Companies may wish, for example, to make strategic investments in frontier technologies with defined use cases for commercialization, form consortia and alliances, and drive standardization to achieve their goals, e.g. in quantum sensing for disease detection. Policy-makers may deploy at-scale pre- commercial procurement of technologies in areas from defence to energy and healthcare in order to create new markets and revenue streams and foster end-user adoption. They may create Europe-wide regulatory sandboxes to allow rapid experimentation and innovation. They could also explore co-funding R&D at scale and, where needed, protecting European capabilities and assets from relocation and takeover. 3. Pick your battles and leapfrog for nascent technologies where Europe is starting to fall behind, such as parts of AI and mobility. This can include skipping to the next-generation technology to get ahead (such as neuromorphic and optical computing) or focusing on specific niches or industrial stronghold domains, such as deployment of AI in industrial areas. Corporations in industry verticals and technology areas could benefit from collaborating to gain an edge and create products and at-scale use cases jointly, such as in predictive analytics in additive manufacturing. Public sector leaders could further support innovation and commercialization by coordinating and providing the ground for the creation of alliances; co-fund research and development within strategic domains; and ensure that regulation, including data policies, is apt to drive responsible innovation in Europe. They may also consider creating demand and becoming anchor customers for innovation in selected domains, e.g. pre-commercial procurement of AI applications in defence or energy systems. 4. Secure access, capability transfer and adoption for scaled-up technologies where Europe needs to catch up, such as parts of the semiconductor, cloud, renewables (e.g. photovoltaics), cybersecurity or next-generation software value chains. Corporations could focus on strengthening long-run partnerships with globally leading firms while building alternative supplier options and in-house capacity to better manage risk and enhance their bargaining position, for example by attracting edge computing leaders to create European hubs. In cases where Europe is trailing global peers, public sector leaders could focus on attracting global investment and ensuring capability transfer more than trying to fund domestic efforts. This may include incentives for investment in R&D and manufacturing (e.g. front-end and back-end manufacturing for semiconductors) by global leaders in Europe, as well as policies encouraging technology transfer and domestic capability build-up. They can also ensure fair access for European innovators to global platforms and gatekeepers, e.g. building on the Digital Markets Act. Europe in the Intelligent Age: From Ideas to Action 12