While the Forrester research team has carried out their analysis for the Top 10 emerging technologies This year, it has become clear that some of the dynamics in Europe are different, both for current investments and planned in emerging technologies.
Contrary to a continuous popular false idea, this is not a history on European companies late in the adoption of technology or a lack of innovative startups. For example, when we look at AI adoption rates across Europe in 2020, European rates were not so different from what we saw elsewhere; Most software, however, has been purchased from non -European companies, mainly American providers. As for the emerging technological startups of Europe, the best tended to be taken by American companies (for example, Deepmind, acquired by Google) or have chosen to move their head office to the United States in order to grow (for example, Spotify).
Although all of this is still the case today, recent geopolitical developments have resulted in a concerted will towards the reduction of this dependence. EU initiatives include Action plan of the continent IAwhose purpose is that the EU becomes “a world leader in artificial intelligence” and a continent of the leader. Less than a month after the launch of the AI plan, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in early May announced the no less ambitious Choose Europe for science Drive, who seeks to attract international research talents to the EU with reduced subsidies and bureaucracy. The United Kingdom, ranked fifth in 2024 AI government preparation index And first in Western Europe, presented his own Action plan for IA opportunitiesEven if it is not yet clear how many government funds will be available.
So, with all this in mind, let’s look at some of the emerging technologies from our top 10 list via a European objective:
- The generative AI for the language is to level the rules of the game for other languages. Today, only one of the most used large language models come from Europe (Mistral). But it is not for lack of talent, as already mentioned; For example, the heart of the Meta Llama model was also developed in France. It should therefore not be too stretched to keep the promise to develop models that support European cultural and linguistic diversity. The Alliance for Linguistic Technologies of Cambersament named European Consortium of Digital Infrastructure trained in 2024With the more recently established linguistic data space, supports multilingual data collection and making them available via a market for linguistic data.
- All AI technologies in our top 10 can benefit from investment in calculation infrastructure. In 2021, the EU introduced a regulation to establish the European High Performance Joint Company with the aim of building a new generation of superordinators in Europe and to expand access to the capacity and services of existing and future supercalculculculculculculculculculis. In 2025, a number of AI factories became available as part of this initiative; They offer free calculation and support services to small and medium -sized businesses as well as startups.
- Autonomous mobility technologies are more widely used than obvious. You will not see any driverless robotaxis on European roads today, and there are not as many factory robots deployed as in certain countries of the APAC. That said, Germany is in fourth place with regard to the density of robots in manufacturing industry (behind South Korea, Singapore and China). Autonomous trams and underground trains operate in many European countries, and a variety of transport vehicles move independently in closed environments such as factories and ports. Service deployments such as autonomous purchase deliveries also exist, although in small scale. Also mentioned are the progress made in the hardware and software of autonomous drones motivated by the needs of the war in Ukraine. Pressures on costs, demographic changes and the desire to reduce dependence on imports will continue to stimulate investments in all technologies under the autonomous aegis of mobility.
I approached some, but not all of our Top 10 emerging technologies For 2025 in this post. If you want to better understand these technologies, consult our Webinar to come on May 21Where Brian Hopkins, vice-president of Forrester from the emerging technological portfolio, will cross the 10 technologies, explain the segmentation of our services and will share more use cases.