The Council and the European Parliament have adopted the legislative regulation for the ‘European Chips Act‘. This regulation will now be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and will enter into force on the third day following its publication.
As part of this regulation, the Council and Parliament also approved the establishment of the Chips Joint Undertaking, which will extend and replace the current Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking.
This Joint Undertaking will fund research and innovation activities in the semiconductor and digital research space. The Undertaking is intended to complement the Digital Europe Programme, which aims to build EU’s capacity in the digital space in areas such as high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity, as well as Horizon Europe in the area of semiconductor research.
Background
The Covid-19 crisis highlighted the critical dependency of the EU on a limited number of foreign suppliers of chips, such as Taiwan.
In response, the EU has now proposed and established the European Chips Act to strengthen the manufacturing capacity for chips on EU territory, stimulate the EU economy by scaling up manufacturing infrastructure, providing new jobs and training opportunities in this sector, and supporting EU semiconductor research and innovation.
The total funding intended for the European Chips Act is €39.7 billion in public and private investment and €3.3 billion from the EU budget. Research calls will be published as part of the newly established Chips Joint Undertaking.
The European Union’s current market share in the global semiconductor market is 10%; through the European Chips Act, the EU aims to increase this global market share to 20% by 2030.