EU invests €700m in NanoIC Chips Act pilot line
The European Union has officially opened NanoIC, the largest Chips Act pilot line to date, marking a major step in strengthening Europe’s semiconductor capabilities. Located at imec in Leuven, Belgium, the new facility represents a total investment of €2.5 billion and is designed to push chip technology well beyond today’s manufacturing limits. Of that total, €700 million comes directly from EU funding, matched by €700 million from national and regional governments, with the remainder provided by ASML and other industry partners.
For eeNews Europe readers, this matters because NanoIC directly affects Europe’s ability to design, prototype and industrialize advanced chips locally. The pilot line also creates new opportunities for equipment suppliers, fabless companies, start-ups and research organizations to validate next-generation processes before high-volume manufacturing.
Beyond-2nm manufacturing comes to Europe
NanoIC is the first European facility to deploy the most advanced Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, enabling research and development for chip technologies below the two-nanometer node. This positions Europe closer to the leading edge of semiconductor manufacturing, a space that has largely been dominated by Asian and US players.
The pilot line is designed to support innovation across a wide range of applications, including artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, advanced healthcare systems and future 6G mobile networks. By offering near-industrial-scale capabilities, NanoIC allows new device architectures, materials and process technologies to be tested and refined long before they reach commercial fabs.
The facility was officially opened by Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever and Flanders’ Minister-President Matthias Diependaele. Companies and researchers will be able to evaluate new chip designs, manufacturing equipment and process flows under realistic production conditions.
Open access and pan-European collaboration
A core principle of NanoIC is open access. Start-ups, SMEs, research institutes and large industrial players can all use the pilot line, reducing barriers to entry for advanced semiconductor R&D. While hosted by imec, NanoIC brings together a broad European network including CEA-Leti (France), Fraunhofer (Germany), VTT (Finland), CSSNT (Romania) and Ireland’s Tyndall National Institute.
NanoIC is one of five pilot lines under the Chips Act, alongside FAMES, APECS, WBG and PIXEurope. Together, these initiatives represent €3.7 billion in combined EU and national investment aimed at bridging Europe’s strong research base with industrial-scale manufacturing. The opening of NanoIC follows the inauguration of the FAMES pilot line in January and comes almost four years after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first announced the European Chips Act.
As discussions begin around a possible “Chips Act 2.0,” the start of NanoIC’s operations signals a concrete move from policy to practice, reinforcing Europe’s ambitions around semiconductor sovereignty, supply chain resilience and long-term competitiveness.
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