Europe is losing its position in semiconductor research

The share of EU countries in global semiconductor patents is declining, while Asia is dynamically increasing its research activity, according to an analysis by EconPol Europe. Research and development in semiconductor technology is increasingly concentrated outside Europe, with a clear shift in patent activity to Asian countries. While Germany leads in Europe with 5.6% of global patents, this is less than Taiwan (9%) and China (7%). China and South Korea have shown the highest growth, with China's share soaring from 0.8% to 17.6% between the early 2000s and 2019-2021, while the European share fell from 13.3% to 8.3%. The analysis notes that despite the EU Chips Act, very little funding has been allocated to semiconductor research so far, and to avoid falling behind, Europe must expand international cooperation, especially with Asia