Europe doesn’t need one Silicon Valley but many connected hubs

Welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful and relaxing summer. Before looking ahead to a new season of innovation, let’s rewind to 2 July, when the twelfth Gerard & Anton Awards brought the Brainport community together once again.

Ten promising startups joined the Gerard & Anton community this year: ATA Mute, Astrape Networks, Avendar, CoolSem Technologies, Euclyd, Helia Biomonitoring, Luper Technologies, Perovion Technologies, Photon Bridge and Touchwaves. Together, they demonstrated what makes Brainport distinctive: deep technology connected to tangible problems, from AI’s energy appetite and heat in chips to industrial pollution, noise and Europe’s technological independence. Syntric Medical received the Gouden Peertje, while student team EDEN won the inaugural Ignition Award.

Meet all the 2026 winners:

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/gerard--anton-award-winners-connect-tech-with-tangible-problems

...and revisit the ceremony through the Gerard & Anton video archive:

https://www.youtube.com/@GerardAnton-040

Okay, now, what happened last week?

Europe must abandon the single Silicon Valley myth

Europe should stop trying to create one monolithic answer to Silicon Valley. At the opening of the academic year at Eindhoven University of Technology, leaders from politics, academia and industry argued that the continent’s strength lies in its network of specialised regional ecosystems. Rather than asking every region to excel in everything, Europe should reinforce clusters that already combine scientific expertise, industrial scale and globally competitive companies.

Eindhoven Mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem called on Europe to identify the technologies in which it wants to compete at the highest level—and then invest decisively in the regions capable of delivering them. TU/e Rector Magnificus Silvia Lenaerts added that Europe does not need complete independence across every supply chain. Instead, it should secure strategic “control points”: indispensable capabilities that allow Europe to retain technological influence and make its own choices.

Brainport’s connections with Munich, imec and KU Leuven show what such a model can look like. By linking specialised hubs across national borders, Europe can create complete value chains in semiconductors, advanced materials and energy technology. The message from Eindhoven was clear: Europe’s regional diversity is not a weakness, but only becomes a competitive advantage when its strongest ecosystems are given the capital, freedom and connections to move quickly.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/a-plea-for-europe-to-go-beyond-the-single-silicon-valley-myth

Silvia Lenaerts

How a headstrong boy from Overijssel became a wind pioneer

As a child, Rikus van de Klippe preferred taking bicycles apart and building unusual constructions to following the crowd. That independent streak eventually took him from aeronautical engineering to a lifelong career in wind energy. After founding three wind startups, he is now helping TouchWind commercialise an innovative turbine with a tilting rotor. The portrait is part of our series The Early Years of an Inventor, exploring how childhood experiences help shape unconventional thinkers.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/a-headstrong-little-boy-from-overijssel-became-a-wind-pioneer

International students bring significant economic benefits

International students generally generate more revenue for the Dutch government during their careers than they cost during their studies, according to a new analysis by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. Non-EEA university graduates contribute nearly €250,000 to public finances on average, partly because a growing proportion stays in the Netherlands to live and work. Beyond tax revenues, international talent also contributes knowledge, skills and valuable global networks.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/international-students-bring-significant-economic-benefits

TNO warns that Europe’s electronics window is closing fast

Artificial intelligence is pushing conventional circuit boards and monolithic chips towards their limits. TNO argues that Europe must therefore focus on the next electronics architecture, in which chiplets, memory, sensors and photonic elements are tightly integrated at package level. The continent still has strong positions in photonics, advanced packaging, testing and metrology—but fragmented value chains and the gap between research and industrial production could cause that opportunity to disappear.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/tno-warns-europes-electronics-window-is-closing-fast

The Netherlands ranks third in Europe, but investment lags behind

The Netherlands has the third-best business environment among 29 European countries, trailing only Sweden and Denmark. It performs particularly well in innovation, digitalisation and labour participation, with the highest employment rate in the ranking. Yet one weakness stands out: gross fixed capital formation amounts to only 20.1% of GDP, putting the country in 25th place. The Netherlands is good at creating and applying knowledge, but invests comparatively little in its future productive capacity.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/the-netherlands-ranks-third-in-europe-yet-investments-lag-behind

Macron visits ASML as Europe pursues technological sovereignty

French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten met in Brainport to strengthen bilateral cooperation in semiconductors and artificial intelligence. Their visit included a roundtable with Dutch and French technology companies and a tour of ASML’s headquarters. TNO and French quantum scale-up Quobly also signed an agreement combining Dutch testing and systems-engineering expertise with Quobly’s silicon spin-qubit platform—another concrete step towards a sovereign European technology ecosystem.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/macron-tours-asml-as-europe-chases-chip-sovereignty

Macron at ASML's headquarters with Dutch PM Rob Jetten and ASML's CEO Christophe Foquet - © Emmanuel Macron LinkedIn profile

The Dutch nuclear revival has a people problem

The Netherlands wants to extend the life of the Borssele nuclear plant and build two additional large reactors. According to experts at the Dutch-Belgian Nuclear Summer School, the technology itself is not the greatest obstacle. The country urgently needs engineers, operators, welders, builders and regulators, while experienced professionals are approaching retirement. Building public trust, a reliable supply chain and educational capacity will be as important as selecting the reactors themselves.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/dutch-nuclear-revival-has-a-people-problem-not-a-tech-one

Smart local control could save billions in grid expansion costs

The Netherlands may spend more than €300 billion on electricity-grid expansion over the next 25 years, but new research suggests that smarter use of existing capacity could substantially reduce the bill. A system of locally coordinated “holons” would allow electric cars, heat pumps, solar panels and batteries to respond to congestion in their immediate area. The simulations indicate potential savings of around €200 billion compared with a system that responds only to national energy prices, although the researchers stress that these figures are scenarios rather than forecasts.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/smart-local-control-could-save-billions-in-grid-expansion-costs

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