Europe's Bid For Photonic Chip Leadership Begins In Barcelona

Barcelona hosted PIXEurope Connect, an event organised under the European PIXEurope initiative — a pilot line coordinated by ICFO and supported by a €400M investment aimed at accelerating the photonic chip market and strengthening Europe’s technological sovereignty.

On 21 May 2026, Barcelona hosted PIXEurope Connect – Industry Ecosystem Building Day, an event organised to align visions and expertise, and to reinforce the extraordinary technological potential and transformative capacity of the PIXEurope Pilot Line in accelerating collaborations and driving innovation in photonic chip technologies across Europe.

​​The event brought together, in the auditorium of Torre Glòries in Barcelona, the leading players in the semiconductor and photonics sector —including policymakers, scientists and technologists, manufacturers and end users— to strengthen Europe’s position in next-generation chip development and ensure its technological sovereignty in the photonic chip industry.

PixEurope Connect, which brought together 300 experts and institutional representatives, was attended by Óscar López Águeda, Minister for Digital Transformation and Civil Service of Spain; Carlos Prieto Gómez, Government Delegate in Catalonia, Núria Montserrat, Minister for Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Jari Kinaret, Executive Director of the Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU); Werner Steinhögl, Head of Sector of the Microelectronics and Photonics Industry Unit of the European Commission; and Oriol Romero-Isart, Director of the BIST Community centre ICFO, the coordinating institution of the PIXEurope Pilot Line. In their speeches, all of them underscored these institutions’ commitment to advancing Europe’s strategy for integrated semiconductor and photonic chips.

“PIXEurope is a strategic project, a European project conceived and designed from the outset to ensure the generation of knowledge, as well as sovereignty in terms of capacity and technology in integrated photonics, to be developed here in Europe, rather than relying exclusively on regions outside this part of the world”, noted the Catalan Minister, Núria Montserrat.

Institutional visit to ICFO’s facilities
Following his participation in the PIXEurope Connect event, Minister Óscar López, accompanied by Minister Núria Montserrat and the Government Delegate in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto Gómez, had the opportunity to visit ICFO’s facilities in Castelldefels to see first-hand the advances in photonic chip fabrication technology.

During the tour, accompanied by the Director General of Research and Universities, Teresa Sanchís, the Rector of UPC, Francesc Torres, and the Director of CERCA, Laia Pellejà, they visited various laboratories and the Nanofabrication Laboratory (NFL), a new facility where state-of-the-art photonic chip prototypes are designed and developed. The visit allowed the minister to witness first-hand the work being carried out by ICFO researchers in advancing integrated photonics, semiconductors, quantum communications and other technologies key to strengthening European digital sovereignty. The tour also included a visit to ICFO’s new building, whose renovation — funded through the Singulars project of the Generalitat de Catalunya — will help reinforce the photonic chip programmes and the so-called Quantum Valley.