Europe’s silicon photonics gap shows deeptech needs scale-up infrastructure
New research highlights manufacturing and foundry-access bottlenecks for silicon photonics companies, showing how Europe’s deeptech challenge is often about scale-up infrastructure.
Europe has strong deeptech research, but research alone does not build companies. Silicon photonics shows why scale-up infrastructure matters.
What happened
New research from CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre highlighted bottlenecks facing silicon photonics companies.
The survey covered 500 decision-makers across the UK, US, Netherlands, Germany and Spain, and found that manufacturing access and foundry availability remain major roadblocks to commercialisation.
Why it matters
Silicon photonics matters for AI hardware, quantum technology, communications and semiconductor sovereignty.
The problem is not only whether Europe can produce strong research. It is whether companies can access the manufacturing infrastructure needed to turn prototypes into commercial products.
The bigger picture
Deeptech needs a full stack: research, capital, manufacturing and customers.
Europe’s silicon photonics gap shows that innovation policy cannot stop at grants and labs. If scale-up infrastructure is missing, promising technologies may struggle to become globally competitive companies.