Tens of thousands of news articles and blogs about the future of the European tech sector were analyzed by Deep View, our AI tool. These include deep dives into the US-CN relationship, ecosystem and funding, and cross-industry applications.

Interviews were conducted with subject-matter experts from Deloitte, technology businesses, investors and industry bodies, covering the most crucial economic, political, socio-technological and environmental developments surrounding the European Tech Sector.

We combined two critical uncertainties - “Attractiveness of Europe for tech companies” and “Europe's technological primacy”. This resulted in four distinct futures, which were further developed considering the driving forces with low uncertainty and high impact, so called trends.

Underpinning each scenario are seven core drivers and enablers:

1. Frontier technologies. The extent to which core technology, which has the greatest commercial value add, is developed in Europe.
2. Talent. The availability of talent wishing to, and able to work in, the European tech sector, or a subset of it.
3. Management philosophy. The approach to managing businesses, including willingness to take risk and the appetite for audacity.
4. Availability of capital. The maturity of various classes of investors: funds available, risk appetite, the understanding of tech business models.
5. Economic environment. Wealth levels, economic inequality within countries, wealth contribution by sector; wealth gaps between countries in Europe.
6. Political environment. Attitudes towards the technological sector, including sobriety of regulation and support for wealth creation.
7. Global economy. Attitudes to Europe and its tech sector from countries outside of Europe.

Each scenario is a fictionalised view of the future, featuring made-up companies, but with each narrative extrapolated from real trends, events and technologies. Whilst each outcome is possible, with some more likely than others, Deloitte has created these scenarios to foment discussion on which outcome is desirable, and what needs to happen to get there.