mEuropean Coalition Call ajeur pour l’Europe

Across every industry, one fact is becoming impossible to ignore: AI is reshaping system architectures faster than Europe is reorganizing its capabilities. This is no longer about processors, boards or modules. It’s about who will control the next generation of intelligent physical systems.

Recent insights from VDC Strategy’s executive brief on embedded platforms highlight just how rapidly this shift is accelerating worldwide. And right now, Europe is not in the driver’s seat. Let’s examine why and where Europe must act.

AI-native architectures: the new global baseline

Robotics, industrial automation, mobility, energy, healthcare—every major sector is shifting to architectures built around AI workloads, with heterogeneous compute (CPU + GPU + NPU + accelerators) becoming the default.

“Europe uses these platforms. Europe does not control them. This gap is structural and strategic.”

Modularity and open standards are no longer optional

Standards such as COM-HPC, COM Express, SMARC, OSM and hardened SBCs have become the foundations of scalable, certifiable, long-lifecycle systems. Europe has strong players in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, but no shared European strategy to turn modularity into industrial leverage.

Without coordination, modularity remains a strength fragmented across borders instead of a continental advantage.

Regulation: Europe’s strength and vulnerability

With the Cyber Resilience Act, AI Act and NIS2, Europe leads the world in digital safety and trust. Yet the platforms capable of supporting secure boot, chain-of-trust, secure OTA, and SBOM-by-default are overwhelmingly non-European.

Europe leads on rules and lags on platforms. This asymmetry is becoming a competitive handicap.

Verticalization and HW/SW ecosystems: the real battleground

Global Leaders no longer sell hardware. They sell full-stack ecosystems: silicon + SDKs + runtimes + tools + cloud + optimized AI models. Europe has most of these pieces. What it lacks is coordination.

Conclusion

Europe has the industries. Europe has the regulatory leadership. Europe can develop the talents pipeline required for the next decade. Now Europe needs the coalition!