The semiconductor crisis during the pandemic led Sweden to join the EU’s semiconductor strategy, the European Chips Act. Now, Sweden is part of the work to develop an updated version, Chips Act 2.0.
Sweden’s goal with its semiconductor strategy is to strengthen the national ecosystem, build competence and innovation, and ensure national competitiveness and economic independence. The strategy focuses on reinforcing Sweden’s existing areas of strength and developing a niche production strategy, rather than becoming a high-volume manufacturing nation. This work is coordinated through Semicon Sweden.
The roundtable brought together voices from across the ecosystem, from MyFab, Axis Communications, ARM, Ericsson, to Packet Architect, RISE, and NanoLund.
The discussion was convened under the umbrella of Semicon Sweden, the national initiative working to support the creation of a formal national semiconductor strategy. Semicon’s role is to connect industry, academia, and government — and to ensure that Sweden takes its place within the European coalition of 27 countries advancing the EU Chips Act.
Yasemin Heper Mårtensson and Malin Berglund moderated.
Sweden’s Superpowers: Trust, Talent and Technical Excellence
- Strong research base; a relatively simple, democratic, and safe system.
- Sweden is a credible and trusted country internationally.
- High level of engineering expertise, efficiency, and product quality — key competitive advantages.
Mind the Gaps: What’s Holding Us Back
- Limited domestic competence, and migration policies that hinder talent attraction.
- Very difficult to secure deals and financing (noted by a participant from a smaller semiconductor company).
- The gap between research and a marketable product can be up to 20 years.
- Rising nationalism makes international collaboration harder (Patrik from Axis mentioned it’s becoming almost impossible for them to use U.S. components).
- Lack of competence close to the frontend/production phase.
- Financing models are not well-adapted.
Chips With a Purpose: Building a Smarter, Safer, Greener Europe
- Lobbying and education of policymakers — there won’t be more funding until awareness among politicians increases.
An exercise: Envisioning Sweden in 2035
The round table group got to imagine a scenario, in the future:
“It is 2035. Ursula von der Leyen praises Sweden for its outstanding work in developing the Swedish semiconductor industry. Sweden is now among the global leaders”:
Participants were asked to reflect: What did we do to get here?
Some of the answers:
- We improved math education, ensuring all students reached a high level of mathematical proficiency.
- We accepted industries supplying the defense sector.
- We created a strong, unified strategy across politics, industry, and academia.
- We made targeted investments in selected specializations and focused our resources there.
- Schools and universities became better at communicating with industry.
- We became even better at algorithms (mentioned by Patrik Lislén from Axis).
- We broadened the base — sparking interest and providing foundational knowledge to many more young people so they could work in the semiconductor field.
Closing – The 3 most important actions going forward
- Develop a more specific, sharper national strategy and direction along with a strong narrative.
- Define a clear, shared problem statement, essential for driving meaningful innovation.
- Improve coordination between the government agencies responsible for supporting and implementing the semiconductor initiative — especially regarding funding and investment alignment.
