Europe's first Chips Act prioritized fab construction. The Industry Advisory Group reviewing its performance is now arguing this was the wrong sequencing. Maria Marced (IAG chair, past TSMC EMEA president) and Francesc Guim (Openchip, one of only two fabless AI chip companies in the IAG) are making the same case: demand creates chip companies, chip companies create the case for fabs, and fabs work when they have design starts to fill them. The EU built fabs before creating the demand and design ecosystem that justify them.
The mechanism for Chips Act 2.0 is still being shaped, but the direction from the IAG report is clear: EDA tool access for European startups, design-to-tape-out funding for early-stage chip companies, and local customer programs that create pull demand. The Siemens Chips JU announcement from May 14 (breaking EDA procurement barriers for European startups) is the early signal that this policy posture is already influencing EDA vendor behavior before the legislation passes.
The beneficiary is the European fabless startup ecosystem, particularly in Spain (Openchip, photonics startups) and the Nordic/German EDA-adjacent companies. The loser is the assumption that fab subsidies alone create a semiconductor industry. If the EU follows through, RISC-V and open EDA tooling get their largest policy tailwind outside Asia by 2027.