As part of its ambitious innovation strategy, the EU is focusing on developments in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum tech, and advanced connectivity. Roland Benedikter argues that stronger transregional collaboration, along with a holistic vision, will help make practical, inclusive progress in the exciting fields of emerging technologies

In February 2025, the EU published its impressive list of emerging technologies, 221 Future Technologies That Could Shape Europe’s Future. The report follows the Finnish Parliament’s groundbreaking 2019 report Societal Transformation 2018–2037: 100 Anticipated Radical Technologies. And in June of this year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2025 report. All three reports point towards new exciting opportunities emerging across the tech sector, which have the potential to ignite a new era of innovation to drive Europe forward. 

Indeed, the EU has already identified four priority sectors for the coming years: artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum technology, and advanced connectivity. The early 2025 WEF report Europe in the Intelligent Age: From Ideas to Action concurred with these priorities. Since January 2025, the EU’s emerging technologies initiative has been supported by a Competitiveness Compass, reinforced by the April 2025 action plan for European leadership in artificial intelligence.

Development in the sectors of artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum technology, and advanced connectivity will influence and interconnect with other economic, technological, and social fields

The breadth of emerging technological opportunities, along with focused initiatives in key sectors, offer hope that 2025 could be a breakthrough year for European innovation. Europe remains strong in many transformative technologies. The four key sectors will likely act as transversal transformers — influencing and interconnecting with other economic, technological, and social fields. 

Catalysts of innovation 

These opportunities have breathed new life into Europe’s technology landscape. Transnational border regions, in particular, are driving faster progress. 

Take the Austrian-Italian Euregio Tyrol. Here, the University of Trento's Department of Engineering and Information Science leads ICT research and development in Italy and Europe. To its north, the University of Innsbruck is a global leader in theoretical physics, setting benchmarks in quantum computing, quantum optics, and quantum communication. Not by chance, the world’s first quantum ethics initiative, widely admired, originated there. Many expect the quantum revolution to provide new insights into the mystery of human consciousness.

South of the Euregio, Eurac Research, founded in 1992, has 11 institutes and five centres featuring 108 EU projects. It also features the world’s most advanced extreme climate simulation chamber, Terra-x cube, sought after by enterprises and institutions at the leading edge of sustainability tech. 

South Tyrol’s NOI Techpark in Bolzano and Brunico, founded in 2017, and the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano engineering faculty, founded in 2023, provide the Euregio with a robust innovation infrastructure. This allows Euregio partners to develop progressive technologies with a focus on sustainability — enhancing efficiency, reducing energy consumption, and raising their profile in their particular areas of sustainability research.

Many of the technologies that could shape Europe's future are linked to the success of Europeanisation. Improving transnational collaboration thus requires the integration of multi-level governance

Euregio Tyrol’s ambitious South Tyrol strategy document Every Day for Future strives to make the region among the most sustainable in Europe by 2030. It aims to set an international example for realising the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, leading global development, and inviting others to cooperate. 

But though transnational European regions are catalysts of innovation, they must not rest on their laurels. Much work remains to improve transnational European collaboration, in particular. Many of the 221 technologies that could shape Europe’s future are linked to the success of Europeanisation. Improving transnational collaboration thus requires the integration of multi-level governance. 

Towards an integrated digital Europe 

Transnational collaboration is essential for some still-neglected yet crucial fields of emerging tech. Since the first prototype of ChatGPT in November 2022, chatbots have taken the world by storm. From late 2024, they have revolutionised responses to information requests, changing from listing engines into answer engines by presenting AI-generated summaries above search results. This is transforming the way people seek information and orient themselves. 

But European discussion on the future of the chatbot industry still lacks depth. To avoid falling into new dependencies, Europe will soon need AI bots of its own. This raises questions of ethics, values, utility, and regulation. It will also require the EU to make delicate decisions about inclusion and exclusion, which ultimately touch on pluralism and social justice.

Europe needs its own AI chatbots. It must thus make delicate ethical decisions which touch on pluralism and social justice

In April 2025, the EU launched a call for proposals to establish skills academies for emerging technologies, with EU funding. This initiative supports efforts in cybersecurity, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, and virtual worlds. Linking European regions more strongly to this effort – and in anticipation of a European Chatbot strategy – could be a good idea. Any pan-European innovation discussion on this key issue may pay dividends for the regions themselves. 

Reducing bureaucracy to support emerging technologies

In sum, European leaders see 2025 as a breakthrough year for emerging technologies, in which they can focus on what they have neglected in the past. European innovation campaigns are happening amid vibrant pan-European discussion. 

Yet sometimes, to flourish and prosper, less can be better than more. The EU has recognised that reducing bureaucracy in the innovation sector is important in the years ahead. If it succeeds, this will support technologies of the future from the bottom up, and make them as beneficial as possible for societal well-being and safety for all.