From Networks to Data: Europe’s Competitiveness Challenges in the 6G Era

The focus of next-generation mobile network development has shifted from infrastructure to data, software, and innovation ecosystems. Leading firms are expanding their R&D investments most rapidly in digital services and semiconductors, while R&D in telecommunications infrastructure has grown more slowly. At the same time, global technological leadership has increasingly concentrated in the United States and Asia. Europe’s share has declined across nearly all domains central to 5G and 6G technologies, and its position in data-driven innovation, software, and commercial scaling has weakened. The EU’s digital regulation has become a double-edged sword: it strengthens privacy and consumer protection but simultaneously increases the costs of innovation and business growth, particularly in data-intensive sectors. Competitiveness in the 6G era will require a balance between regulation, innovation, and investment. Europe must strengthen the conditions for data utilization and ease regulatory constraints that hinder innovation. In the long term, competitiveness will depend not only on the creation of new firms but also on Europe’s ability to grow and sustain its own global players that can create value across the key layers of the data-driven economy.