International Technology Development Partnerships - Toward a Partnership-Based Industrial Policy in a Multipolar World

In this edition of the Reimagine Cooperation newsletter, I would like to take the discussion one step further. In previous articles, I have argued that Europe should increasingly pursue technology development partnerships and joint industrial policy with partners beyond its borders. Rather than attempting to rebuild technological sovereignty alone, Europe could benefit from pursuing shared industrial capabilities through structured international cooperation.

This idea has often been discussed at a high level, but what does it actually mean in practice? What types of partnerships exist, and what institutional models have worked in the past? And how could such models be adapted to address today’s strategic technologies such as semiconductors, batteries, artificial intelligence, and cloud infrastructure?

To explore these questions, it is helpful to examine several historical examples of industrial alliances. Three cases are particularly instructive: SEMATECH, Airbus, and the more recent European Battery Alliance. Each represents a different approach to industrial collaboration—and each offers important lessons for how technology development partnerships could be designed in the future.

Three Models of Industrial Alliances

SEMATECH: Pre-Competitive Technology Collaboration

The creation of SEMATECH in 1987 was a response to a specific technological crisis. At the time, the U.S. semiconductor industry was rapidly losing competitiveness to Japanese manufacturers. Companies such as Intel, IBM, and Texas Instruments still existed and had strong engineering capabilities, but they were falling behind in semiconductor manufacturing processes and production yields.

Rather than creating a new semiconductor company, the United States government and industry leaders opted for a different solution: a public–private technology consortium. SEMATECH focused on pre-competitive research, pooling resources across companies to address shared technological bottlenecks.

The consortium worked on semiconductor manufacturing processes, equipment standards, lithography improvements, and other technological foundations that would benefit the entire industry. Importantly, this collaboration took place before firms competed with one another in the marketplace.

The model proved successful. SEMATECH played a significant role in helping restore the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry in the 1990s. The key lesson from SEMATECH is that when the core problem of an industry lies in shared technological capabilities, a collaborative research alliance can be an effective solution.

Airbus: Building a European Industrial Champion

The creation of Airbus represents a very different type of industrial partnership. In the late 1960s, Europe lacked a globally competitive aircraft manufacturer capable of challenging American companies such as Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

European governments recognized that developing such capabilities would require enormous capital investments, technological coordination, and long-term political commitment. Their solution was to create a joint industrial champion.

France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain combined their industrial resources to build Airbus as a single integrated enterprise. Production responsibilities were distributed across participating countries, ensuring political support while developing complementary industrial expertise.

Unlike SEMATECH, Airbus was not a research consortium but a fully integrated manufacturing company producing complex aircraft systems. Governments supported the project through long-term financing and were willing to absorb significant early risks.

Over time, Airbus became one of the two dominant aircraft manufacturers in the world. The Airbus experience demonstrates that when industries require large-scale manufacturing capabilities and massive capital investments, success may depend on building a concentrated industrial actor capable of competing globally.

The European Battery Alliance: A Coordination Model

The European Battery Alliance (EBA) was launched in 2017 to establish a competitive battery industry in Europe. Batteries are widely seen as a critical technology for the energy transition and for the future of the automotive sector.

However, the institutional design of the alliance differed significantly from the Airbus model. Rather than creating a champion company or a tightly integrated industrial consortium, the initiative focused primarily on network coordination. It brought together companies, research institutions, and policymakers to stimulate investment and collaboration.

While the initiative succeeded in mobilizing political attention and encouraging investment, the industrial outcomes have been uneven. European battery projects have struggled with production scaling, capital intensity, and competition from established Asian manufacturers such as CATL and LG Energy Solution.

The experience of the battery alliance reveals two important lessons.

First, industrial policy must begin with a clear diagnosis of the core problem of an industry. Battery manufacturing is characterized by steep industrial learning curves. Competitiveness depends heavily on production efficiency, yield rates, and scale. These challenges are difficult to address through loosely coordinated networks alone.

Second, the battery case suggests that Europe may not yet be committing sufficient market power, investment volume, and long-term political commitment to compete effectively in such capital-intensive industries. Industrial learning curves in sectors like battery manufacturing require decades of sustained investment and a willingness to absorb early losses.

Why Partnership-Based Industrial Policy Matters

These examples highlight the importance of designing industrial alliances that match the specific characteristics of each technology. But they also point to a broader structural issue.

Europe’s position in the global economy has evolved. While it remains one of the world’s largest economic regions, the scale of investment required to lead in frontier technologies has grown dramatically. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and energy storage demand vast financial resources and coordinated policy efforts.

Achieving technological sovereignty in these fields requires investment across several dimensions:

• research and development

• industrial manufacturing capacity

• secure supply chains for critical materials

• targeted support for strategic companies

• market creation through public procurement

The scale of these investments is immense. In many cases, the resources required may exceed what Europe is politically willing or able to mobilize alone.

Partnership-based industrial policy offers an alternative. By cooperating with other regions—particularly emerging middle powers—Europe can expand the pool of capital, talent, and markets available for technological development.

Of course, such partnerships introduce complexity. Coordinating industrial strategies across countries is more challenging than acting unilaterally. Yet the potential advantages are substantial: larger markets, diversified supply chains, shared risks, and expanded innovation ecosystems.

Importantly, the concept of partnership-based industrial policy aligns closely with the foundational idea of the European Union itself. The EU was built on the premise that cooperation among sovereign states could generate economic and industrial capabilities that none could achieve alone. Extending this logic to partnerships beyond Europe may be a natural evolution in an increasingly multipolar world.

A Taxonomy of Technology Development Partnerships

Drawing on the historical examples discussed above, we can identify several types of technology development partnerships.

Champion Platforms

These partnerships aim to build integrated industrial leaders capable of competing globally. They are most appropriate in industries requiring large-scale manufacturing, heavy capital investment, and tightly coordinated production systems.

Example: Airbus.

Technology Alliances

These partnerships focus on shared research and technological development before market competition. They are effective when multiple firms exist but need collaborative innovation to overcome technological bottlenecks.

Example: SEMATECH.

Sovereignty Supply Partnerships

These partnerships focus on securing access to critical materials and upstream supply chains through joint investment and long-term cooperation.

Deployment Alliances

These partnerships address infrastructure scaling challenges—such as energy systems, cloud infrastructure, or data centers—where deployment rather than technological invention is the primary barrier.

Capability Stack Partnerships

Some technologies require coordinated investments across multiple layers simultaneously—research, computing infrastructure, data access, talent development, and application ecosystems. In such cases, multiple policy instruments must be integrated into a single strategic framework.

Applying the Framework to Key Technologies

This taxonomy helps clarify the strategic challenges of several key technologies.

Batteries require champion platforms combined with sovereignty supply partnerships because manufacturing scale and access to critical minerals are both decisive.

Semiconductors require a combination of technology alliances for research, champion platforms for advanced manufacturing, and supply partnerships for critical materials.

Artificial intelligence represents a capability stack challenge involving computing infrastructure, data access, talent, and application ecosystems.

Cloud and data infrastructure primarily involve deployment alliances, where the key challenges relate to energy supply, capital investment, and regulatory frameworks.

Conclusion: Shared Sovereignty Through Strategic Partnerships

Technology development partnerships do not mean that every industry must be jointly developed with external partners. Instead, Europe can adopt a flexible strategy in which different technologies involve different types of cooperation.

In some sectors, Europe may lead and invite partners as minority participants. In others, Europe may participate as a junior partner, co-investing in industries where other countries already possess strong capabilities. Such asymmetric arrangements can still strengthen technological sovereignty if they create reciprocal dependencies and diversified supply chains.

Strategic autonomy in a globalized economy does not require producing every technology entirely within Europe. Rather, it may depend on building resilient networks of trusted partners, where capabilities are distributed but interdependent.

In that sense, partnership-based industrial policy is not a departure from Europe’s historical trajectory. It is a continuation of it. Just as European integration once allowed national economies to combine their strengths and build shared industrial capabilities, the next phase of technological development may involve extending this logic to a broader community of partners in an increasingly multipolar world.