RESEARCH — Nov. 10, 2026
AI Development and Its Role in Eurozone Capital Investment
By Diego Iscaro
AI-related investment is accounting for a growing share of capital formation in the eurozone. Inflation-adjusted intellectual property investment rose 15% between early 2022 and Q2 2026, compared with 8% for total investment, while the share of firms using AI more than doubled from under 9% in 2023 to over 21% in 2025.
Key findings
- European AI-related investment is gaining momentum, with intellectual property products investment, computing equipment imports and data center projects all indicating an expanding economic contribution from AI-related capital formation.
- The investment cycle is also moving from experimentation toward deployment. Data shows AI adoption among eurozone firms more than doubling between 2023 and 2025, alongside stronger investment in software, data and computing infrastructure.
- Northern and northwestern economies generally lead adoption, while several southern and eastern eurozone economies remain at an earlier stage, potentially widening regional differences in productivity and investment.
- European initiatives are focused on mobilizing private capital, expanding computing capacity, and improving access to power, land and finance.
- The speed of development is likely to be constrained by multiple factors, including power grid congestion, long connection times, and limited power and water availability.
Why is AI-related investment difficult to measure in the eurozone?
AI-related investment is difficult to measure because it spans both intangible assets, such as software and data, and physical computing infrastructure, and no single official statistic captures both in the eurozone.
A great deal of relevant macroeconomic data also incorporates non-AI-related investment, making it difficult to fully isolate the AI component. Some of the most relevant data is only available annually with a considerable lag.
While each dataset has limitations individually, taken together they suggest that AI-related investment is accounting for a growing share of capital formation in the eurozone.
What does intellectual property investment reveal about AI development?
Eurozone intellectual property products investment, adjusted for inflation, grew 15% between early 2022 and Q2 2026, nearly double the 8% rise in total investment in the same period.
Investment in IPP serves as a proxy indicator, as it captures many of the investments firms typically undertake when developing or adopting AI-related technologies, such as software development, database creation, and other forms of digital innovation. Although IPP investment is broader than AI alone, it remains one of the best available indicators of the intangible capital that supports digital transformation.
On its own, strong IPP investment does not necessarily imply stronger AI investment, as IPP spending includes activities unrelated to AI. However, it provides an important indication that firms are continuing to invest heavily in software, data and research capabilities essential for the development and deployment of AI technologies.
What do imports and data center investment indicate about the physical AI build-out in the eurozone?
Trade data provides a perspective on AI-related investment by capturing imports of some of the hardware used to develop and deploy AI technologies. Rising imports of processors, memory products and other computing equipment are likely to represent an early indication of growing investment in the area.
The value of imports in the selected basket increased gradually between 2016 and 2021, accelerated after 2022, and gained further momentum in 2025 and early 2026. Available data for 2026 shows that the basket represents about 7% of the EU’s total merchandise imports, compared with roughly 3%-4% during most of the previous decade. Higher semiconductor and memory prices are likely to explain part of the recent increase.
The composition of imports still supports the broader investment signal. Growth has occurred across processing units, other data-processing equipment, parts and accessories, and memory products, rather than being concentrated in a single category.
Taken together, the data suggests that computing-related products are becoming increasingly important within the EU’s import structure, although both stronger real demand and higher prices are likely to have contributed.
How is AI affecting business activity and adoption in the eurozone?
S&P Global's Europe Technology Equipment Purchasing Managers' Index, which measures business activity in the sector, averaged its strongest reading in four years over the first eight months of 2026.
Unlike investment and trade data, which measure realized expenditure, the PMI captures current business conditions and provides a live indicator of developments within the technology equipment sector.
The broad direction of the PMI is consistent with the trends observed in both IPP investment and computing-related imports. Periods of improvement in the survey data broadly coincide with stronger performances in the other indicators, while weaker readings tend to align with slower growth.
How widely has the eurozone adopted AI?
Eurostat’s annual survey of enterprises offers a more direct measure by tracking the share of firms that use at least one AI technology. The share of enterprises with at least 10 employees using AI more than doubled in just two years, from less than 9% in 2023 to over 21% in 2025. The increase was broad-based across the eurozone, although adoption levels vary considerably.
Several northern and northwestern economies have emerged as clear leaders. In 2025, adoption approached 40% in Finland, while Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria also recorded adoption rates well above the eurozone average.
Among the larger eurozone economies, Germany has outperformed the regional average, while Spain has broadly tracked it. France, Italy and Ireland have remained somewhat below the eurozone average despite recording substantial gains since 2023.
Adoption remains relatively low in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece, but AI usage has also expanded in these economies, suggesting that diffusion is occurring across the region rather than being confined to a small number of early adopters.
The survey also highlights a sizable gap between large and small firms. Across the eurozone, almost 58% of enterprises with 250 or more employees reported using AI in 2025, compared with about 18% of firms employing between 10 and 49 workers.
AI use has increased across all company size categories. The rapid rise in the number of firms deploying AI technologies indicates that stronger investment is being accompanied by broader diffusion of AI across the eurozone economy.
What do the combined investment signals say about AI's overall contribution?
We expect AI-related investment to remain an important source of European capital formation, partly offsetting weakness in more interest-rate-sensitive areas. The outlook is supported by rising adoption, elevated IPP investment, stronger imports of computing equipment and a substantial data center pipeline.
This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.
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