Europe’s bid for leadership in photonic chips begins in Barcelona

On 21 May 2026, Barcelona hosted PIXEurope Connect – Industry Ecosystem Building Day, a landmark event gathering around 300 field experts, industry players, and institutional representatives to reinforce European collaboration and drive innovation in photonic chip technologies. The event was organised by ICFO - the Institute of Photonic Sciences, coordinator of PIXEurope - Europe's first fully integrated Pilot Line for Advanced Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs).

Held at the Torre Glòries auditorium, the one-day gathering brought together leading players across the semiconductor and photonics sector - including policymakers, scientists, technologists, manufacturers, and end-users - with the shared goal of strengthening Europe's position in next-generation chip development and securing its technological sovereignty in the photonic chip industry. The event was attended by high-level institutional representatives whose participation underscored Europe's strategic commitment to integrated photonics. These included Óscar López Águeda, Spain's Minister for Digital and Civil Service Transformation; Núria Montserrat, Minister for Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Jari Kinaret, Executive Director of the Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU); Werner Steinhögl, Head of Sector in the Microelectronics and Photonics Industry Unit of the European Commission; and Oriol Romero-Isart, Director of ICFO.

Minister Núria Montserrat described PIXEurope as “a strategic project, a European project conceived and designed from the outset to ensure the generation of knowledge, as well as sovereignty in terms of capacity and technology in integrated photonics, to be developed here in Europe, rather than relying exclusively on regions outside this part of the world”. The minister recalled that “in Catalonia we also want to play a leading role, and we want to do so because we have a world-class scientific ecosystem in which ICFO is one of our long-standing research institutes, alongside other institutions working in photonics in collaboration with our universities, and also because we want to understand and be part of this twenty-first century technological race.”

As a partner in the project, the following members of the IMB-CNM Photonics team attended the meeting: Carlos Domínguez, Joaquín Faneca, Théo Rouanet, Jorge Barreto, Mabel Torrens, Joao Leite, Jad Sabek, and Pau Güell. The IMB-CNM contribution is coordinated by CSIC Research Professor Carlos Domínguez, and the institute’s Director, Luis Fonseca, also took part.

More detailed information about PIXEurope Connect at Europe’s bid for leadership in photonic chips begins in Barcelona.

The Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM-CSIC) is a partner in the new pilot line with two main roles: developing silicon nitride (SiN) photonic technologies for operation in the visible and near‑infrared (NIR) ranges; plus overseeing all SiN‑related activities within the pilot line and coordinating the installation and acceptance of all the new equipment. The machines will be installed at the Micro and Nanofabrication Clean Room at IMB-CNM-CSIC.

In addition, on June 15th, IMB-CNM hosted a technical meeting with ICFO. Both teams discussed current and future activities within the Pilot Line, including the procurement and installation of new equipment, collaboration in various technical tasks, and alignment on overall Pilot Line coordination topics.

IMB-CNM people in the picture: Carlos Domínguez Horna, Joaquin Faneca, Jad Sabek, Théo Rouanet, Pau Güell, Yohana López Aparicio, Alex Rodríguez Iglesias, João Leite, Valentina Vergara Vallejo, Joaquin Hernandez Betanzos, Alejandro Gil Morente, and Carla García Esquiva.

Within PIXEurope, Spain plays a leading role through a strong national consortium bringing together five entities from the autonomous communities of Catalonia, Valencia, Madrid, and Galicia, with expertise covering the full photonic integrated circuit (PIC) value chain. This coordinated national effort reinforces Spain’s strategic position within the European pilot line framework and its contribution to advancing photonic integration technologies.

Spain’s leadership is anchored in the coordination of the overall Pilot Line by ICFO, with Valerio Pruneri serving as PIXEurope Director. In this role, ICFO oversees project management, exploitation, and Pilot Line operations, while technically contributing to the areas of design kit implementation, novel functional materials such as colloidal quantum dots, hybrid integration, packaging, testing, advanced characterization, and the development of key photonic demonstrators. UVigo’s QOPHI LAB provides an important technical contribution in areas such as compact modeling, scalable testing methods, and high volume manufacturing migration strategies, supported by state of the art infrastructure for characterization, testing, packaging, and hybrid integration of photonic devices. IMB-CNM (CSIC) contributes its extensive expertise in silicon micro  and nanotechnologies, underpinning both fundamental and applied research, process development, and training in silicon photonics. As for UPV, it will contribute, through UPVfab, in advancing hybrid photonic integration by leading III V/SiPh PIC development, design kit validation, testing methodologies, and the realization of a photonic processor demonstrator linking research with pilot line manufacturing. Finally, IMDEA Networks Institute will lead the development of a demonstrator for a new 1.6 Tbps pluggable concept, expected to reach data speeds required by next-generation networks and AI-driven data centers. It will also develop photonic interfaces for testing, assembling, and packaging.

Spain’s total participation in PIXEurope amounts to ~133M€, combining European funding from Digital Europe and Horizon Europe with national contributions. Of this amount, Spain coordinates €66 million in national funding, co financed by the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, with the regional support of the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya).

Together, these national partners ensure PIXEurope delivers an end to end, industry ready photonics ecosystem, accelerating the translation of cutting edge research into scalable manufacturing, reliable technologies, and competitive industrial applications across Europe.