About this Event
The AI Innovation Center is proud to host a high-level event focused on European AI sovereignty and the critical technologies needed to strengthen Europe’s strategic position in the global AI landscape.
At a time of increasing geopolitical pressure and technological dependence, the key question is: how can Europe build and control its own full AI stack?
The program will give the stage to three leaders and founders from Axelera AI, Euclyd, and Datacation. The talks will be followed by a joint panel discussion with all three speakers, focused on concrete pathways toward AI sovereignty, the gaps that still exist, and the technological, economic, and policy challenges that must be addressed.
Date: Thursday 21 May
Time: 16:00 – 19:00
Location: Conference Center High Tech Campus Eindhoven
Program
15:30 – 16:00 Arrival and coffee
16:00 – 16:10 Welcome by moderator Irene Rompa
16:10 – 16:30 Interview with Bernardo Kastrup (Euclyd): Agility as a competitive edge in the landscape of AI
16:30 – 16:50 Keynote by Bram Verhoef (Axelera AI): Building Europe’s AI sovereignty: From silicon to systems
16:50 – 17:00 Break
17:00 – 17:20 Keynote by Ralf Zoetekouw (Datacation): AI in practice: The application layer
17:20 – 17:55 Panel discussion
17:55 – 18:00 Closing remarks
18:00 – 19:00 Networking drinks
Interview and keynote abstracts
Interview with Bernardo Kastrup | Agility as a competitive edge in the landscape of AI
In this interview, we dive deeper with Bernardo Kastrup, founder and CEO of Euclyd, into why agility, not scale, is the true competitive edge in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. With Euclyd seeking $100 million in funding, he explains how the company aims to challenge larger corporations by staying flexible, adapting quickly, and building on a deeper understanding of intelligence and consciousness.
Bram Verhoef | Building Europe’s AI Sovereignty: From Silicon to Systems
As artificial intelligence becomes a strategic capability, Europe faces a critical question: how to build a competitive and sovereign AI stack in a landscape dominated by non-European players. This talk explores the role of compute infrastructure and chip design as foundational layers of AI sovereignty.
Bram Verhoef, co-founder & VP of Customer Solutions and Engineering of Axelera AI, will examine the current requirements in Europe’s AI ecosystem and why control over hardware, particularly AI accelerators, is essential for performance, security, and economic independence. Using Axelera AI as a case study, the presentation highlights how innovative chip architectures and energy-efficient inference platforms can help strengthen Europe’s position in the global AI race.
The session concludes with a forward-looking perspective on how collaboration across industry, research, and policy can enable Europe to build a resilient, end-to-end AI stack, from silicon to applications.
Ralf Zoetekouw | AI in practice: The application layer
AI sovereignty is not only about infrastructure and compute, it becomes tangible at the application layer.
In this session, Ralf Zoetekouw, founder and CEO of Datacation, shares a practical view on the state of AI sovereignty in the application layer. Based on Datacation’s experience working with more than 350 organizations, he will show how AI is being applied in practice, how data control, governance, and strategic autonomy shape real-world deployments, and why the application layer is where sovereignty becomes tangible. To make this concrete, he will present several concrete use cases that illustrate what AI is actually solving for organizations today - and what that means for sovereign, responsible, and future-proof deployment.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Conference Center High Tech Campus, 1b High Tech Campus, Eindhoven, Netherlands
EUR 0.00
