From Lab to Light
Eindhoven’s Bet on the Next Chip Revolution
On the northern edge of the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, cranes and concrete mixers now dominate a site that may help define Europe’s technological future. In a few years, the building rising here will house a facility unlike any other in the world: an industrial pilot line capable of producing photonic chips on 6-inch indium phosphide wafers.
The contrast is striking. Outside, heavy machinery pounds steel into the Dutch soil. Inside the future cleanrooms, when they open, engineers will work in near silence, manipulating structures smaller than a human hair so that light itself can carry information across microscopic circuits.
Behind this construction site lies an ambition far larger than the building footprint. Governments, research institutes and companies hope the project will help Europe reclaim a measure of technological independence in the global semiconductor race — and usher in a new generation of computing built not on electricity, but on light.
“We can no longer afford, as Europe, to depend on other continents for our most critical technologies. The battle for chips is the geopolitical battle of the 21st century. Eindhoven proves the Netherlands is not merely a spectator, but an architect of our own digital sovereignty.”
Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius
Leader of the VVD — Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister
The new facility, part of the European PIXEurope initiative under the EU Chips Act, is designed to bridge a critical gap in the semiconductor world — the notorious space between laboratory breakthroughs and scalable industrial manufacturing.
For the Netherlands, it also marks a symbolic return. For the first time in more than four decades, the country is building a new chip production facility.
Read MoreThe Bank Without Bankers
Algorithms, regulation and shareholder pressure are reshaping Europe’s financial system
On a grey weekday morning in Amsterdam’s financial district, the glass towers of the Zuidas reflect the muted light of the North Sea sky. Inside one of those towers, millions of financial transactions pass through servers every hour. Algorithms analyse patterns, flag irregularities and calculate risk scores in fractions of a second.
Somewhere within those data flows, an automated system may decide that a small entrepreneur poses too high a risk for credit. Another model may classify a customer’s transaction as suspicious and freeze an account. In most cases, no human being will have examined the decision beforehand.
Modern banking has become a system of data.
Across Europe, banks are rapidly transforming into digital infrastructures built on automated decision-making. Artificial intelligence monitors payments, determines creditworthiness and identifies potential fraud. Compliance systems analyse vast datasets in order to satisfy regulators. Meanwhile, investors demand ever higher levels of efficiency.
In this environment, the traditional banker — the professional exercising judgement based on experience and personal knowledge of customers — is gradually disappearing.
“Many banks still need to adapt their risk management to the specific challenges posed by artificial intelligence, including explainability and clear accountability for AI-driven decisions.”
Elizabeth McCaul
Member of the Supervisory Board
European Central Bank
Her warning reflects a growing concern in European financial circles. Technology is reshaping banking faster than governance structures can adapt.
What emerges from this transformation is something new: a bank without bankers.
Read MoreBeyond the Smartphone
Samsung’s Quiet Bid to Build Europe’s AI Infrastructure
MWC 2026 and the emergence of the AI Infrastructure Stack
Each year, the global telecom industry gathers in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. For decades the event served primarily as a stage for the evolution of mobile networks and the devices that connect to them. But walking through the halls of MWC 2026, the atmosphere felt fundamentally different.
Smartphones were still present, of course. Yet the deeper narrative unfolding across keynotes, closed-door briefings and operator demonstrations was not about the next device cycle. It was about infrastructure — the invisible architecture that will underpin artificial intelligence, connectivity and digital sovereignty for the coming decade.
In that shifting landscape, one company stood out for attempting something unusually ambitious: building a vertically integrated AI infrastructure stack spanning silicon, networks, devices and industrial systems. The company was not an American hyperscaler or a cloud provider.
It was Samsung Electronics.
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