Open Technology, Protected Value: Industrial Alliances for the New Digital Economy

This policy brief, Open Technology, Protected Value: Industrial Alliances for the New Digital Economy, summarises the outcomes of a high-level multi-stakeholder dialogue held on 12 February 2026 in Madrid within the IP4OS framework . The discussion brought together industry leaders, AI firms, infrastructure providers, financial institutions, academia and public authorities to examine AI adoption, industrial data spaces, regulatory complexity and Europe’s strategic competitiveness. The central finding is that Europe’s main bottleneck is not technological capacity, but organisational fragmentation and regulatory layering, particularly affecting SMEs and supply chains. The brief highlights the need for outcome-oriented data governance, cross-regulatory coherence and SME-sensitive implementation models. It aligns these insights with the ERA Policy Agenda 2025–2027 and outlines policy directions to reduce structural friction, strengthen trusted data infrastructures and support competitive, human-centric AI governance in Europe.