Europe has announced a sizeable investment as it looks to stay relevant in the AI race, with the continent launching ‘NanoIC’, a €2.5 billion pilot line for ultra-advanced chip research and prototyping. Hosted at imec in Leuven, Belgium, the facility was inaugurated on February 9, 2026, and forms one of the five flagship pilot lines under the European Chips Act.
NanoIC is said to provide a shared environment where companies, research institutes, startups, and universities can test and refine process technologies beyond 2 nanometers, develop new chip architectures, and validate integration schemes before committing to the enormous capital cost of volume manufacturing. The line will host ASML’s most advanced lithography system, the High-NA EUV scanner, together with the full suite of supporting tools required for next-generation node development.
The total investment in NanoIC stands at €2.5 billion. Of this, €1.4 billion comes from public sources. This includes €700 million from the EU’s Chips Joint Undertaking and €700 million from the Flemish government, while industry partners, led by ASML, contribute the remaining €1.1 billion. The facility is open to a wide range of participants, including European semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, integrated device manufacturers, fabless companies, and academic groups. “We are all very proud and thankful that this is happening at the heart of Europe and will allow Europe to play an even more critical role in the global semiconductor ecosystem,” said ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet. imec CEO Luc Van den hove added that “the NanoIC pilot line will play a crucial role in strengthening Europe’s industrial fabric in the AI era.”
“Designed to bring chip technologies from the ‘lab to the fab’, the pilot lines are a key pillar of the Chips for Europe initiative under the Chips Act. They will strengthen the position of European players in the global semiconductor supply chain and be open to trusted partners, supporting Europe’s industrial base and competitiveness while helping retain and attract talent,” the Commission announced in its official statement.
To provide some context, Europe accounts for only a small fraction of leading-edge chip design and manufacturing capacity, leaving it exposed to supply-chain vulnerabilities and largely on the sidelines of the AI compute boom that has propelled US and Asian foundries and IDMs. As of last year, the continent accounted for just under 10% of total global semiconductor production. The European Chips Act, adopted in 2023, aims to double the EU’s share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2030. The Act’s pilot-line strategy is a cornerstone of that ambition. Rather than attempting to replicate the multi-billion-dollar commercial fabs built by TSMC, Samsung, or Intel, Europe is focusing on collaborative R&D infrastructure that de-risks innovation for the entire ecosystem.
Still, building commercial leading-edge fabs remains extremely capital-intensive, and the continent has not yet attracted a major commitment to construct a full-scale 2 nm-capable facility on par with those in Taiwan, South Korea, or the United States. The Chips Act’s public-private partnership model seeks to bridge that gap by lowering technical risk and sharing costs.
The EU Chips Act has five pilot lines – Fames (focused on ultra-low-power semiconductors), Apecs (advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration), WBG (wide-bandgap power electronics), PixEurope (photonics and imaging sensors), and NanoIC. Together, the five lines represent a combined public investment of €3.7 billion.
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