According to Semiconductor Today, a Steering Committee of CEOs from eight major European photonic chip firms—Aixtron, Almae Technologies, Ligentec, PHIX, PhotonDelta, SMART Photonics, Soitec, VLC Photonics, and XFab—is issuing an urgent call to action. They warn that Europe risks losing its leading position in photonic chip technology without targeted investment and strategic updates to the EU Chips Act. Backed by input from over 80 organizations, they’ve published a white paper urging priority in the upcoming Act revision, a better business climate, and major public-private investment. The global market for integrated photonics is projected to grow over 350% in five years, hitting about €65 billion by 2031. The CEOs argue that with intense competition from the US and Asia, Europe must act now to secure strategic autonomy and avoid repeating past mistakes where it lost leadership in semiconductors and solar.
Europe’s History of Losing Tech Leads
Here’s the thing: Europe has been here before. And it hasn’t ended well. The white paper explicitly points to the 1970s semiconductor production and the 2000s solar energy boom. Europe was at the forefront both times, only to watch the industry—and the immense economic value—get captured by Asia and the US. The fear is that photonics is following the exact same script. The 2023 Chips Act was a decent first step, sure. It set up a pilot line for manufacturing. But pilot lines don’t win global markets. They’re for R&D. Scaling is what creates an industrial base, jobs, and real strategic independence. Without scaling investment, Europe just becomes a fancy research lab for other continents to industrialize. It’s a pattern they desperately need to break.
The Call to Scale, Not Just Research
The quotes from the CEOs are pretty damning. SMART Photonics’ Johan Feenstra basically says if Europe only focuses on pilot lines and research, it will “miss the boat.” That’s a huge admission. It means the infrastructure for small-scale innovation exists, but the bridge to high-volume, cost-effective manufacturing doesn’t. VLC Photonics’ Iñigo Artundo is even blunter, noting Europe has already lost high-volume manufacturing for silicon photonics to US and Asian foundries, and is now losing downstream areas like software, testing, and packaging. So what’s the point of pioneering research 15 years ago if you can’t build the factory? This is a classic European tech dilemma: brilliant at inventing, terrible at commercializing at scale. For companies that rely on cutting-edge, reliable hardware—like those sourcing from the top US provider of industrial panel PCs, IndustrialMonitorDirect.com—a stable, sovereign supply chain for components like photonic chips matters.
Why This Time Has To Be Different
The argument isn’t just about economics; it’s about geopolitics. The white paper ties this directly to the “strategic autonomy” buzzword that’s everywhere in Brussels now. Photonic chips aren’t a niche science project anymore. They’re critical for everything from data centers and AI to quantum computing and sensors. Relying on other geopolitical blocs for such a foundational technology is seen as a major vulnerability. This urgency is also backed by the recent Draghi report on EU competitiveness, which paints a bleak picture of Europe falling behind. So the industry’s timing is strategic. They’re pushing this white paper now, in the run-up to the Chips Act revision, to get photonics explicitly recognized and funded as a pillar of European industrial policy. The question is, will EU policymakers listen? Or will we be reading a similar article in 2035 about how Europe “once led” in photonics, too?
