Amsterdam “needs own tech university to stay ahead in Europe”

Amsterdam has been urged to set up a “tech corridor” with Eindhoven, with its own specialist university, to avoid falling behind other European cities in the race to exploit new technologies such as AI.

Research by Haroon Sheikh, professor of philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit (VU), found that weak co-operation between tech regions and the four universities of applied sciences in Delft, Eindhoven, Twente and Wageningen was undermining the Netherlands’ status as a European tech leader.

Amsterdam’s Economic Board said the research showed there was a need to bring the various technical studies available at the city’s universities and colleges, including the VU, the University of Amsterdam and In Holland, on to a single campus focusing on deeptech and AI applications.

Amsterdam and Eindhoven together account for more than a quarter of the Netherlands’ GDP, but lack the structural cohesion and infrastructure of other major tech corridors such as the M4 corridor in the UK, the AEB said.

“We cannot afford to keep working in this piecemeal way and resting on our laurels,” said CEO Jessica Peters-Hondelink. “It’s a question of what we want to excel at and how we want to bring together the talents of various Dutch regions such as Eindhoven and Amsterdam.”

Sheikh also called for Amsterdam to lobby to attract a major AI hub to the city, in the same way as it successfully bid for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) when it moved out of the UK after Brexit.

The capital missed out to Groningen last year in the contest to become the home of the national AI factory, which is being developed with €200 million of central government funding.