People like to say Europe is eating dust. Follow the supply chains and you find something else: no top-tier AI chip gets made without machines from Europe. 63 dossiers from eight sectors, every relevant claim sourced.
ASML · the world’s only EUV makerAirbus · 793 deliveries in 2025Infineon · No. 1 in power semiconductorsArm · in more than 99% of smartphonesMistral · €3bn Series DGalileo · more than 4.5bn devicesIsar Aerospace · in orbit since 05.09.2026Luxembourg · space resources law since 2017BioNTech · first COVID authorisation worldwideVestas · No. 1 outside ChinaASML · the world’s only EUV makerAirbus · 793 deliveries in 2025Infineon · No. 1 in power semiconductorsArm · in more than 99% of smartphonesMistral · €3bn Series DGalileo · more than 4.5bn devicesIsar Aerospace · in orbit since 05.09.2026Luxembourg · space resources law since 2017BioNTech · first COVID authorisation worldwideVestas · No. 1 outside China
Europe rarely talks loudly about what it can do. It writes laws for mining in space, builds the only machines that can expose the most advanced chips, and leaves the talking to others. This page talks. With sources.
00 The chain
From laser to GPU. Three of the five links are in Europe.
“Europe has no alternative to Nvidia” is a stock phrase. It can be turned around. Click through the supply chain of an AI chip.
A 40 kW CO₂ laser hits 50,000 tin droplets per second. The plasma emits EUV light at 13.5 nm.31
Mirrors, illuminators and collectors: according to ASML’s annual report, Zeiss is the sole supplier of the optics.30
The only EUV lithography machines in the world. Nikon and Canon build only older DUV systems.29
In Fab 21 in Arizona, ASML scanners produce the most complex layers of Nvidia’s Blackwell processors.125126
The GPUs today’s language models are trained on, plus the Grace CPU with 72 Arm cores from Cambridge.34
13.5 nm wavelength of EUV light. For comparison, a human hair is about 80,000 nm thick.
Sectors
Eight fields. Hidden champions and loud names.
Ditzingen, Oberkochen, Veldhoven. Espoo, Freiburg, Linz. This is where the machines, models and missions come from that the world relies on. Eight fields, more than sixty stories of people who would rather deliver than make noise. Start anywhere. You won’t stop at one.
DeepL was founded in 2017. In its last confirmed round ($300m, May 2024) it was valued at $2bn.910
KI-04Rising
AMI Labs
Paris · FR
$1.03bnseed round in March 2026, the largest in Europe11
Yann LeCun’s start-up is not building another language model. It works on world models based on his JEPA architecture.1112
There is no product yet. The first year is explicitly reserved for fundamental research.12
KI-05Rising
NXAI · xLSTM
Linz · AT
xLSTM 7Brecurrent language model, presented at NeurIPS 202413
Sepp Hochreiter, co-inventor of the LSTM, is building an alternative to the transformer architecture in Linz. According to the company, compute grows only linearly with text length. Self-described1314
According to ASML’s annual report, Zeiss is the sole supplier of the optics in its scanners. ASML’s output is limited by Zeiss’s capacity.30
HW-03Hidden champion
TRUMPF
Ditzingen · DE
50,000tin droplets per second, hit by the CO₂ laser31
The laser amplifier boosts pulses to 40 kW. The plasma from the tin droplets emits EUV light at 13.5 nm. It was developed together with ASML and ZEISS.31
HW-04World-class
Infineon
Neubiberg · DE
17.3%world market share in power semiconductors in 2025, No. 133
In automotive semiconductors Infineon has been world market leader six years in a row, with a 12.8% share in 2025.32
Article 1 of the law of 20 July 2017 allows space resources to be appropriated. Only the US had a comparable law before (2015). The UAE followed in 2019, Japan in 2021 as the fourth country.5051
Since 2021 a second law governs the authorisation of all other space activities. The Luxembourg Space Agency has operated since 2018. ESRIC, a centre for space resources, was set up together with ESA.525354
Satellite operator SES, based in Betzdorf, acquired Intelsat in 2025 and now runs about 120 satellites in GEO and MEO.55
SP-02World-class
Airbus
Leiden · Toulouse
793commercial aircraft delivered in 2025, Boeing delivered 6005758
Airbus Defence and Space booked record order intake of €17.7bn in 2025.56
Three of the four flights in 2026 carried satellites for Amazon’s Leo constellation.59
A turbopump anomaly limits 2026 to six flights at most.60
SP-04Rising
Isar Aerospace
Ottobrunn · DE
05.09.2026orbit reached: the first commercial orbital flight from continental Europe62
The first attempt in March 2025 ended after about 30 seconds. The second flight placed satellites in their target orbit.6162
Another €270m in funding came in June 2026. Through the European Launcher Challenge, ESA awarded about €544m to Isar, RFA and PLD Space in August 2026.636465
According to ESA, Copernicus is the largest provider of Earth observation data in the world. Self-described72
SP-09Rising
IRIS²
EU
≈ 290satellites for secure EU communication from 203073
The programme is worth about €10.6bn. The contract went to the SpaceRISE consortium of SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat.73
SP-10World-class
ESA
Paris · Darmstadt
€22.1bnrecord budget at the ministerial council in November 202575
On 12 November 2014 ESA’s probe Philae became the first ever to land on a comet.74
04 Defence
Even the US military buys European defence technology.
Since 2022, new companies have been founded faster than ever and established manufacturers report record orders. Some of this technology protects the sky over Ukraine every day.
DF-01Loud & proud
Helsing
Munich · DE
$18bnvaluation in July 2026, four years after its founding in 202178
Helsing announced 6,000 HX-2 strike drones for Ukraine.76
Since 2025 Helsing has shown CA-1 Europa, a full-size autonomous combat aircraft; the first flight is planned for 2027.77
The plant in Unterlüß is set to produce up to 350,000 artillery shells a year from 2027.82
DF-04World-class
Kongsberg
Kongsberg · NO
NOK 12bnmaximum value of the NSM contract with the US Navy and US Marines (2024)84
According to the company, the NASAMS air defence system already protected the US capital region in 2005. Self-described83
DF-05World-class
Diehl Defence · Hensoldt
Überlingen · Taufkirchen
€2.2bncontract for more IRIS-T systems for Ukraine (2025)87
Diehl states a hit rate of almost 100% for IRIS-T SLM in Ukraine. The figure has not been independently verified. Self-described85
Hensoldt’s TRML-4D radar tracks up to 1,500 targets at 250 km. Self-described86
DF-06World-class
Saab
Stockholm · SE
$87mUS Army framework contract for the Carl-Gustaf system (2020)88
DF-07Rising
Tekever · Cambridge Aerospace · Comand AI
Lisbon · Cambridge · Paris
$3.4bnvaluation of Cambridge Aerospace (August 2026), maker of the Skyhammer drone interceptor91
Tekever became a unicorn in 2025. Comand AI supplies AI mission planning to units in France, Germany and Ukraine.8990
DF-08World-class
France
Paris · FR
No. 2among the world’s largest arms exporters 2021–2593
In The Hague in 2025, NATO members committed to spending 5% of GDP a year on defence and security by 2035.92
05 Intelligence & encryption
The foundation of secure communication came out of a British agency.
Without public-key cryptography there would be no online banking. It was invented at the British intelligence agency GCHQ, years before RSA. Today European firms deliver radar images from space and encrypted communication for millions of people.
In a secret 1973 paper Clifford Cocks described a method that is essentially RSA. Malcolm Williamson found what is now the Diffie-Hellman key exchange.9495
The end-to-end encrypted service is based in Geneva and subject to Swiss law.99
06 Energy & sustainability
A fifth of the world’s high-value cleantech inventions come from the EU.
Europe builds the largest wind turbine makers outside China, the first cement plant with industrial-scale carbon capture and fusion experiments that set world records.
EN-01World-class
EU patents
EPO · EIB
> 22%of the world’s high-value cleantech inventions (2017–21)102
In low-carbon energy patents Europe led 2010–19 with 28%, ahead of Japan (25%) and the US (20%).101
EN-02World-class
Vestas
Aarhus · DK
€18.8bnrecord revenue in 2025, order backlog €71.9bn104
Vestas is the largest turbine maker outside mainland China. Worldwide, Chinese manufacturers hold places 1 to 6.103
400,000 tof CO₂ captured per year: the world’s first industrial-scale CCS plant at a cement works106
EN-05World-class
Neste
Espoo · FI
5.5m tannual capacity for renewable diesel and aviation fuel107
Neste describes itself as the world’s leading producer. Self-described107
EN-06World-class
Wendelstein 7-X
Greifswald · DE
43 sworld record for the triple product in long plasma pulses (2025)108
Tokamaks lead in short pulses. In long ones the stellarator has beaten the best tokamaks.108
EN-07Rising
Proxima Fusion
Munich · DE
€130mSeries A in 2025, according to the company the largest private fusion round in Europe109
Proxima is a spin-off of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and plans a stellarator power plant in the 2030s.109
07 Health & biotech
The world’s first COVID vaccine came from Mainz.
European pharma and biotech firms are among the highest-grossing in the world, and an AI built in London won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
BIO-01World-class
BioNTech
Mainz · DE
02.12.2020the world’s first emergency authorisation of a COVID-19 vaccine (UK)111
In December 2025 BioNTech acquired the Tübingen mRNA pioneer CureVac.110
BIO-02Context
Google DeepMind
London · UK
Nobel 2024Chemistry Nobel Prize for AlphaFold to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper114
DeepMind was founded in London in 2010 and has been part of Google since 2014. Its spin-off Isomorphic Labs, also in London, raised $600m in 2025 for AI drug discovery.112113
BIO-03World-class
Novo Nordisk
Bagsværd · DK
DKK 309bnrevenue in 2025, obesity business +31%116
Strong competition from Eli Lilly wiped about $70bn off its market value in 2025 and led to about 9,000 job cuts.115
$2.3bnprofit before tax in 2025 on $6.0bn revenue120
Revolut has 68.3m retail customers and a valuation of $75bn.120
FIN-03World-class
Spotify
Stockholm · SE
777mmonthly active users, 300m of them paying (Q2 2026)121
FIN-04Loud & proud
Klarna
Stockholm · SE
120mactive customers (Q2 2026), listed on the NYSE since September 2025122
FIN-05World-class
Wise
London · UK
$243.5bncross-border volume in fiscal year 2026123
FIN-06Hidden champion
Raspberry Pi
Cambridge · UK
7.6mboards and modules shipped in fiscal year 2025124
Atlas
42 places. From Lisbon to Espoo.
Each dot is a location; its size shows the number of dossiers. The gold line connects the three European links of the chip chain: Ditzingen, Oberkochen, Veldhoven.
Roots
Much of what we take for granted today has a European address.
1970Public-key cryptography
GCHQ, Cheltenham. James Ellis has the idea, Clifford Cocks the method in 1973.9694
1989World Wide Web
CERN, Geneva. Tim Berners-Lee writes the first proposal; server and browser run by the end of 1990.127
1991Linux
University of Helsinki. Linus Torvalds announces a free hobby operating system.128
1991Python
CWI, Amsterdam. Guido van Rossum publishes version 0.9.0.129
1992MP3
Fraunhofer IIS, Erlangen. The MPEG-1 Layer III standard is adopted.130
1994Bluetooth
Ericsson, Lund. The radio technology is born in southern Sweden.131
1997LSTM
TU Munich and IDSIA Lugano. Hochreiter and Schmidhuber publish the network that ran language AI for years.132
2003Skype
Tallinn. Founded by a Swede and a Dane, programmed by four Estonians.133
2008Large Hadron Collider
CERN. According to CERN, the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world.134
2017Transformer
Developed at Google. Four of the eight authors come from Germany, Poland, Wales and Ukraine.135136137138139
Debate
Six stock phrases and how to answer them.
Every reply comes with sources. And because persuading also takes fairness, each reply notes what the original line gets right.
Line 1“The US invented LLMs, everyone else is playing catch-up.”
The building blocks have many parents. LSTM was born in 1997 in Munich and Lugano, and four of the eight transformer authors come from Europe. The next architecture is being built right now in Paris and Linz, among others by AMI Labs with Europe’s largest seed round.1321351113
To be fair: The big chat products did come out of US labs first.
Line 2“Europe has no alternative to Nvidia.”
Turn it around: Nvidia has no alternative to Europe. The EUV scanners TSMC uses to make Blackwell chips are built only by ASML. Their optics come only from Zeiss, their laser from TRUMPF. And Nvidia’s Grace CPU runs on Arm cores from Cambridge.29125303134
To be fair: Europe has no GPU family of its own at comparable scale.
Line 3“Having just one language gives the US an edge.”
Europe has turned its many languages into a product. DeepL from Cologne translates for more than 100,000 companies, ElevenLabs from London is worth $11bn.917
To be fair: A large single-language home market makes scaling easier at the start.
Line 4“Europe is too fragmented to keep up.”
Where Europe pools its strength, it leads. Airbus delivered almost 200 more aircraft than Boeing in 2025, Galileo runs on more than 4.5bn devices and CERN operates the largest particle accelerator in the world. The EU single market has 450 million people.575871134140141
To be fair: The Draghi report puts the investment gap at €750–800bn a year.
Line 5“The best minds all go to the US anyway.”
Measured by where they did their bachelor’s degree, 18% of top AI researchers come from Europe and 20% from the US. Europe trains the talent. The challenge is keeping it.142
To be fair: According to Carnegie, Europe is falling behind on most talent metrics.
Line 6“Space is an American business.”
Luxembourg created the legal framework for space resources in 2017, the first country in Europe to do so. ICEYE runs one of the largest radar fleets in orbit, Isar Aerospace reached orbit in 2026 and Ariane 6 flies regularly.5051666259
To be fair: US providers are far ahead on launch numbers and launch prices.
Fact check
How much Europe is in your everyday life?
Ten statements: true or false? The answer comes straight away, with a source. Get all ten right and you get to shine at your next dinner party.
0 of 0 correct · 10 to go
01The World Wide Web was invented in Silicon Valley.
False. At CERN in Geneva. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first proposal in 1989; the first web server and browser ran there by the end of 1990.127
02Airbus delivered more commercial aircraft than Boeing in 2025.
03Without machines from Europe, Nvidia cannot get its top chips made.
True. TSMC exposes the Blackwell chips with ASML scanners. Nobody else in the world builds EUV scanners.12529
04The first landing on a comet was a NASA achievement.
False. It was ESA. Its probe Philae landed on comet 67P on 12 November 2014, controlled from Darmstadt.74
05The encryption behind online banking was first invented at a US university.
False. First at Britain’s GCHQ. James Ellis had the idea in 1970, Clifford Cocks the method in 1973, years before RSA. It stayed secret until 1997.969495
06Technology from Cambridge does the computing in almost every smartphone in the world.
True. Arm CPUs are in more than 99% of smartphones sold.35
07Linux and Python are children of Silicon Valley.
False. Linux was born in 1991 at the University of Helsinki, Python at CWI in Amsterdam.128129
08The first COVID-19 vaccine authorised anywhere in the world came from Mainz.
True. BioNTech developed it with Pfizer. On 2 December 2020 the UK granted the world’s first emergency authorisation.111
09Europe’s satellite navigation Galileo plays hardly any role in daily life.
False. More than 4.5bn devices use Galileo, and more than 95% of smartphones are Galileo-capable. Very likely the one in your hand too.71143
10On rights to resources from space, Luxembourg moved faster than the rest of Europe.
True. In 2017 Luxembourg became the first country in Europe to pass a law on space resources. Worldwide, only the US was earlier.5051
Room to grow
Already really good. With room to grow.
Europe has nothing to hide. But whoever plays at the top also looks at where there is more to gain. This is where the next big opportunities are.
4 of 50
Four of the world’s 50 largest tech companies are European. There is plenty of room left on the podium.141
40 · 15 · 3
Notable AI models in 2024 from the US, China and Europe. All three European ones came from France. The next count can happily be longer.144
≈ $44bn
Venture capital expected in Europe for 2025, while US start-ups raised about $177bn in nine months alone. This is where it gets decided how fast strong ideas become big companies.145146
11.7%
The share of global chip production the European Commission expects for 2030; the target was 20%. After Intel cancelled Magdeburg, hopes rest on fabs like TSMC’s in Dresden.147148
2027
That is when the first process equipment is due in the Dresden fab. And SiPearl’s Rhea1, Europe’s own processor for supercomputers, reached tape-out in 2025 after a long delay.149150
105 t
Climate tech needs stamina. Climeworks’ Mammoth plant captured 105 t of CO₂ in its first year instead of the planned 36,000 t. Stegra and Ørsted needed fresh capital and got it.151152153
3 bets
Bold bets sometimes fail: Northvolt, Lilium and Volocopter did not make it. What matters is that the next founders try again.154155156
$12.9bn
What Nvidia is paying for Hugging Face, founded by three Frenchmen. European AI talent is in demand worldwide. The art is letting the next champions grow big here.157158
Index
All 63 dossiers, searchable.
63 results
Name
Place
Sector
Category
Key figure
Paris · FR
Artificial intelligence & software
Loud & proud
€3bn
Freiburg · DE
Artificial intelligence & software
World-class
$3.25bn
Cologne · DE
Artificial intelligence & software
World-class
100,000+
Paris · FR
Artificial intelligence & software
Rising
$1.03bn
Linz · AT
Artificial intelligence & software
Rising
xLSTM 7B
Walldorf · DE
Artificial intelligence & software
World-class
€22.9bn
London · UK
Artificial intelligence & software
Loud & proud
$11bn
London · UK
Artificial intelligence & software
World-class
$4bn
Stockholm · SE
Artificial intelligence & software
Loud & proud
$13.3bn
Berlin · DE
Artificial intelligence & software
Rising
$2.5bn
Berlin · DE
Artificial intelligence & software
Rising
$3bn
Jülich · DE
Artificial intelligence & software
World-class
No. 5
Veldhoven · NL
Semiconductors & hidden champions
World-class
1 of 1
Oberkochen · DE
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Hidden champion
€4.41bn
Ditzingen · DE
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Hidden champion
50,000
Neubiberg · DE
Semiconductors & hidden champions
World-class
17.3%
Cambridge · UK
Semiconductors & hidden champions
World-class
> 99%
Gerlingen · DE
Semiconductors & hidden champions
World-class
No. 1
Munich · DE
Semiconductors & hidden champions
World-class
No. 1
Almere · NL
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Hidden champion
€3.2bn
Munich · DE
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Hidden champion
+50%
Eindhoven · NL
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Rising
$250m+
Espoo · Palaiseau · Paris
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Rising
$1.9bn
Germany
Semiconductors & hidden champions
Hidden champion
≈ 1,300
Luxembourg · LU
Space & space law
Hidden champion
2017
Leiden · Toulouse
Space & space law
World-class
793
Kourou · Les Mureaux · Bremen
Space & space law
World-class
9
Ottobrunn · DE
Space & space law
Rising
05.09.2026
Espoo · FI
Space & space law
World-class
76
Munich · Bordeaux
Space & space law
Rising
$450m
EU · EUSPA
Space & space law
World-class
4.5bn+
EU · ESA
Space & space law
World-class
free & open
EU
Space & space law
Rising
≈ 290
Paris · Darmstadt
Space & space law
World-class
€22.1bn
Munich · DE
Defence
Loud & proud
$18bn
Munich · DE
Defence
Loud & proud
$8bn
Düsseldorf · DE
Defence
World-class
€63.8bn
Kongsberg · NO
Defence
World-class
NOK 12bn
Überlingen · Taufkirchen
Defence
World-class
€2.2bn
Stockholm · SE
Defence
World-class
$87m
Lisbon · Cambridge · Paris
Defence
Rising
$3.4bn
Paris · FR
Defence
World-class
No. 2
Cheltenham · UK
Intelligence & encryption
Hidden champion
1970
Espoo · Neuss
Intelligence & encryption
World-class
€1.7bn
Munich · Plymouth
Intelligence & encryption
Rising
Months
Geneva · CH
Intelligence & encryption
Loud & proud
100m+
EPO · EIB
Energy & sustainability
World-class
> 22%
Aarhus · DK
Energy & sustainability
World-class
€18.8bn
Hamburg · DE
Energy & sustainability
Rising
10.2 GW
Brevik · NO
Energy & sustainability
World-class
400,000 t
Espoo · FI
Energy & sustainability
World-class
5.5m t
Greifswald · DE
Energy & sustainability
World-class
43 s
Munich · DE
Energy & sustainability
Rising
€130m
Mainz · DE
Health & biotech
World-class
02.12.2020
London · UK
Health & biotech
Context
Nobel 2024
Bagsværd · DK
Health & biotech
World-class
DKK 309bn
Basel · CH
Health & biotech
World-class
CHF 61.5bn
Amsterdam · NL
Fintech & platforms
Hidden champion
€1,394bn
London · UK
Fintech & platforms
Loud & proud
$2.3bn
Stockholm · SE
Fintech & platforms
World-class
777m
Stockholm · SE
Fintech & platforms
Loud & proud
120m
London · UK
Fintech & platforms
World-class
$243.5bn
Cambridge · UK
Fintech & platforms
Hidden champion
7.6m
Sources
158 sources.
73 primary sources (companies, agencies, original publications), 80 press and analyst sources, 5 reference works. Researched on 2026-10-20. Funding figures change quickly; please check the linked source before quoting.