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At Mobile World Congress 2026, Samsung revealed a broader ambition than smartphones alone. Beneath the Galaxy headlines lies a strategic push to shape the emerging AI infrastructure stack—linking silicon, photonics, networks and edge intelligence into the technological backbone of the next digital economy.
Artificial intelligence is often framed as a race for larger data centres and greater energy supply. Professor Martijn Heck argues that the real frontier lies elsewhere: in the architecture of the chip itself. By integrating electronics, photonics and advanced packaging into unified systems, heterogeneous integration may determine whether AI scales sustainably — or overwhelms the infrastructure it depends on. In this conversation, Heck outlines why better chips, not bigger factories, will shape the technological balance of the coming decades.
Four accounting firms once known for auditing balance sheets now shape the digital, regulatory and strategic architecture of modern states. As governments and corporations outsource expertise, Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG have become indispensable intermediaries — designing systems, interpreting geopolitics and increasingly certifying the safety of artificial intelligence. Their rise raises a critical question: who governs when governance itself is outsourced?
When the European Union’s AI Act entered into force, it was presented as a historic moment. Europe, once again, had set a global standard. In Brussels, the ceremony marked not merely a legislative milestone but a declaration of intent: artificial intelligence would not evolve unchecked. It would be governed.
A classical ideal dissolves into digital matter. As artificial intelligence reshapes how knowledge is produced and validated, education stands between formation and automation — forced to confront a deeper question: what is learning for when answers are instantaneous?
Satellite-to-smartphone services mark a structural shift from geographic coverage to continuous connectivity. As terrestrial networks merge with orbital infrastructure, communication becomes an ambient utility — reshaping resilience, sovereignty, economic security and the very meaning of being reachable in a permanently connected society.
The real financial battlefield is not the trading floor, but the valuation engine. As the United States consolidates model power and Asia builds parallel infrastructures, Europe faces an uncomfortable question: can you shape global standards without owning the systems that compute value?
As AI shifts power from software to hardware, Europe confronts a deeper vulnerability: dependence on foreign compute infrastructure. Initiatives like PIXSpain aim to rebuild strategic autonomy at the physical layer — where chips, energy and photonics increasingly determine economic and geopolitical power.
Long dismissed as “dumb pipes”, telecom operators control something increasingly scarce in the digital age: geographically distributed infrastructure with power, connectivity and proximity to users. As energy and latency become binding constraints, networks may evolve from transport systems into Europe’s most valuable compute platforms.
A senior European photonics leader leaves a flagship public institute for Huawei’s research center in London — a move that illuminates far more than a personal career shift. It reveals the growing struggle over who will control the physical infrastructure of AI, telecom networks and the digital economy.
