In discussions about Europe’s digital future, attention often gravitates toward regulation, artificial intelligence breakthroughs or geopolitical competition. Less visible, but equally influential, are the organisations that operate in the space between industry, institutions and long-term strategy. DIGITALEUROPE is one of those actors — not a technology company, not a political body, but a connective force shaping how Europe’s digital transformation is framed and governed.
Culture
Exploring how culture, craft and creativity shape Asia’s evolving relationship with technology and modernity.
In the current geopolitical landscape, universities are no longer peripheral institutions devoted solely to education and abstract research. They have become strategic assets. Nowhere is this more visible than in Asia, where technology, state power and long-term national strategy are deeply intertwined. Rather than converging on a single model of excellence, Asia’s leading universities have specialised. Each reflects a different answer to the same underlying question: how should knowledge production serve national power, economic resilience and global positioning?
Indonesia and Vietnam are often described as “emerging markets”, a label that suggests a linear journey toward a known destination. It is an increasingly inadequate frame. These economies are not moving toward an established end state; they are entering a phase where scale itself becomes the dominant variable. Growth is no longer the question. Absorption is.
Artificial intelligence is still debated at full volume—faster adoption, tighter rules, louder warnings. Meanwhile, its most consequential effects are unfolding elsewhere. Inside Europe’s universities, AI is no longer just a tool. It is a mirror. What it reflects is unsettling. Authorship weakens as evidence of thought. Efficiency detaches from understanding. Control, once foundational to academic authority, begins to hollow out.
When the conversation turns to artificial intelligence, innovation and geopolitics in Europe, names like Oxford, Cambridge and ETH Zürich inevitably dominate headlines. Their research centres, such as Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, frame debates on AI ethics, strategy and societal impact. Yet, the real laboratories of applied AI and geopolitical foresight often lie elsewhere — in institutions quietly bridging the gap between hard engineering, policy insight and strategic foresight.
Europe’s conversation about artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly mature. We debate regulation, ethics, sovereignty and competitiveness. We compare ecosystems, discuss talent shortages and measure ourselves against the United States and China.
