International trade association for electronics equipment and assembly IPC has issued a statement in response to the European Commission’s announcement that it will be carrying out risk assessments of four technology areas deemed critical for the EU’s economic security. The Commission said it had identified four technology areas that are considered highly likely to present the most sensitive and immediate risks related to technology security and technology leakage. These are:
- Advanced Semiconductors technologies (microelectronics, photonics, high frequency chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment);
- Artificial Intelligence technologies (high performance computing, cloud and edge computing, data analytics, computer vision, language processing, object recognition);
- Quantum technologies (quantum computing, quantum cryptography, quantum communications, quantum sensing and radar);
- Biotechnologies (techniques of genetic modification, new genomic techniques, gene-drive, synthetic biology).
The Commission recommends that Member States, together with the Commission, initially conduct collective risk assessments of these four areas by the end of this year.
“Today, we are delivering on our pledge to de-risk the European economy by identifying ten areas of technologies that are critical for our economic security, especially due to their risk of civil-military fusion,“ Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said. “This is an important step for our resilience. We need to continuously monitor our critical technologies, assess our risk exposure and – as and when necessary – take measures to preserve our strategic interests and our security. Europe is adapting to the new geopolitical realities, putting an end to the era of naivety and acting as a real geopolitical power.”
IPC statement
In response to this news, IPC has urged the EU to consider the electronics ecosystem as a whole, and take into account the strategic dependencies on European electronics manufacturing as part of these risk assessments. In a statement, the association also emphasized the strategic importance of a robust electronics manufacturing industry in Europe. Here is the statement, made by Alison James, IPC senior director of European government relations, in full:
“IPC urges the European Commission to address the alarming strategic dependencies in European electronics manufacturing as part of and independently of the risk assessments on critical technologies announced yesterday. Electronics manufacturing is central to the four critical technologies highlighted in the Commission’s proposal although key segments of electronics manufacturing in Europe have atrophied, undermining the region’s resiliency, security, and economic competitiveness.
“IPC recently led a collaboration of more than 100 companies across the electronics industry to produce a report for the European Commission. The report establishes the strategic importance of a robust electronics manufacturing industry, including globally competitive component manufacturers, electronics assemblers (EMS), and printed circuit board (PCB) fabricators, as well as their equipment and materials suppliers.
“The industry stakeholders that produced the report agreed that Europe must strengthen the electronics manufacturing industry to remain on the forefront of technological innovation, compete in the global economy, and bolster resiliency against future supply chain disruptions. As a follow up to the report, IPC is leading the industry’s efforts to engage policy makers and produce new economic research that underscores the risks of a weakened electronics manufacturing ecosystem to Europe.”
View IPC‘s report here – including a list of collaborating companies.
