European Commission launches €45B chip push

The European Chips Act will enable 15 billion euros in additional funding to boost the EU’s semiconductor industry and reduce its dependence on Asia and the US, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said at the presentation of the proposal on Tuesday. This amount comes on top of an expected 30 billion euros in public investments drawn from the corona recovery fund NextgenerationEU, research program Horizon Europe and the coffers of individual member states.

The Act, which will now be discussed by European Parliament and member states, has two main components. The first deals with R&D, education and support for SMEs. The Chips for Europe Initiative will make 11 billion euros available to strengthen relevant R&D infrastructures, including deployment of pilot lines to take research from lab to fab, and fund educational programs to train semiconductor industry experts. The EU Chips Fund will support equity for startups and scale-ups in the chip sector, for a projected overall value of 2 billion euros.