EpoQ, a quantum technology venture emerging from the University of Amsterdam, has won PhotonDelta’s Global Photonics Engineering Contest for its plan to develop a compact atomic clock. The team wants to shrink precision timekeeping equipment for applications including satellites, naval vessels and scientific instruments.
Announced on 21 October, the award provides up to €100,000 in technological services from companies within PhotonDelta’s ecosystem. EpoQ will also have an opportunity to seek up to €2 million in pre-seed investment, subject to a separate assessment and applicable conditions. That potential investment has not been awarded.
The venture builds on research in Rene Gerritsma’s group at UvA’s Institute of Physics. Its team includes Louis Gallagher, a postdoctoral researcher at UvA, and Matteo Mazzanti, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich. The university described EpoQ as preparing for incorporation when it announced the competition result.
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GlobalFoundries is investing €1.1 billion to expand its chip factory in Dresden, at the heart of Silicon Saxony. Additional manufacturing capacity is scheduled for the end of 2028. On 9 October, the company marked a construction milestone and announced separate plans for a new technology aimed at intelligent machines.
For Europe, this is a concrete industrial investment. But building more capacity leaves important questions open: who will use it, why will they choose Dresden and what will Europe gain from helping to finance it?
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A breakthrough technology can secure grants, validate prototypes and attract investors, yet stall at a commercial threshold: who will deploy it in an operating factory, energy system or computing infrastructure?
Adopted on 5 November 2026, the European Innovation Council’s 2027 Work Programme includes targeted measures to help innovative companies win their first customers, including through public procurement.
EIC Board President Michiel Scheffer has identified weak European demand for innovation as a critical obstacle to scaling, alongside financing and regulatory conditions.
Six questions examine what turns technological promise into a purchasing decision.
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Work, care and constant availability compete for the same limited time. As mental-health-related incapacity grows, six questions examine how Europe distributes pressure, protects recovery and allocates the costs when people can no longer cope.
Europe has more stories to tell. Through experimental writing, Altair Media explores the connections between culture, entrepreneurship, technology and capital — and introduces a new briefing for readers curious about the Europe taking shape around them.
Europe’s old pilgrimage routes preserve more than religious heritage. They offer another relationship with time. Through walking, hospitality and unexpected encounters, they reveal what modern societies risk losing when every journey — and even rest — must deliver measurable results.
Years after leaving telecom journalism, Siu Lie Tan reappears in Tuscany—working across circular innovation, European regulation and natural cosmetics. In this Coffee Talk, she reflects on curiosity, changing direction and learning that not everything needs to follow the plan.