Europe wants to double its share of global semiconductor production. The problem is that almost every piece of that ambition depends on someone else’s goodwill.
A report released June 4 by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) lays out the uncomfortable reality facing the EU chip sector: the continent is caught between US policy that pulls investment westward and Chinese leverage over the raw materials that make chips possible in the first place.
Squeezed from both sides
The European Chips Act set a clear target: grow Europe’s share of global semiconductor production from 10% to 20%. That goal was ambitious when it was written. It looks harder now.
On one side, the US CHIPS and Science Act has been quietly hoovering up investment that might otherwise have landed in Europe. Nokia’s $4B investment plan for AI-related technology in the US, announced in late 2025, is the kind of capital shift the IAI report points to as a concrete symptom of the problem.
