Europe to incentivise governments to buy made-in-EU chips by startups, document shows

The European Commission wants governments to buy chips made by EU startups as it seeks to reduce Europe's reliance on U.S. and East Asian products, a document seen by Reuters shows.

The proposal dubbed ‌Chips Act ⁠2.0 ⁠supplements the original Chips Act implemented three years ago, which ​has so far failed to achieve its goals of attracting ​advanced manufacturing and doubling the bloc's global chip market share to 20% by 2030.

EU tech chief Henna ​Virkkunen will on June 3 ⁠lay out ‌details of the latest attempt to ​develop and ​control critical technologies and services, which ⁠has been driven mainly by tensions with ​the United States and China and their ​dominance in these areas. Europe makes about 10% of global semiconductors.


While the Chips Act focused on supply side measures, the Chips Act 2.0 will focus on the demand side, the EU document ‌said.

"Through Demand Accelerators, the Chips Act 2.0 will also aim to boost the use ​of EU-designed ​and EU-made ⁠chips by linking suppliers with users via offtake agreements and a demand forum," the document said.

"To stimulate demand and ​support EU-based start-ups and scale-ups, the Chips Act 2.0 will deploy public innovation procurement, as a strategic tool," the paper said.

The Commission also proposed fast-tracking environmental approvals for chip facilities.