European Chips Act enters into force

Article summary

The European Chips Act came into force on 21 September 2023, alongside the Regulation on the Chips Joint Undertaking. The Act establishes a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the EU’s security of supply, resilience and technological leadership in semiconductor technologies and applications. The European Commission states that the Act will ‘strengthen manufacturing activities in the Union, stimulate the European design ecosystem, and support scale-up and innovation across the whole value chain’. The Act reinforces Europe's technological leadership, incentivises public and private investments in manufacturing facilities for chipmakers and their suppliers, and establishes a co-ordination mechanism between the Member States and the Commission for strengthening collaboration with and across Member States. Under the Regulation, the implementation of the main part of the Chips for Europe Initiative will commence, the European Semiconductor Board will also formally start, and the Chips Fund will also start its activities.