Europe has spent years asking how to become more resilient. But Europe’s Power Play 2026, a new report from World Fund, argues that resilience is no longer enough.

Resilience helps a region absorb shocks. Power determines whether it can shape what happens next.

The report’s central question is simple: how does Europe become powerful again? Its answer lies in four sectors that underpin competitiveness, sovereignty and security:

According to World Fund’s analysis of publicly available data, these power-critical sectors could account for more than $35 trillion in global market value by 2030. That makes them not only strategic priorities, but one of the defining investment opportunities of the decade.

For decades, Europe benefited from cheap imported energy, outsourced manufacturing and external security guarantees. That model delivered efficiency. It also created dependence.

The report points to several fault lines. The EU’s natural gas import dependency stood at 85.6% in 2024. Europe consumes around 20% of the world’s semiconductors but produces only about 10%. The EU imports nearly all of its processed lithium and most of its battery-grade materials from China. Manufacturing accounts for 14.3% of EU GDP, below the bloc’s 20% policy target.

These weaknesses reinforce one another.

High energy costs make European industry less competitive. Dependence on imported materials leaves production exposed to trade restrictions and geopolitical pressure. Limited compute infrastructure increases reliance on foreign chips, cloud providers and AI platforms.

The problem is not simply that Europe is vulnerable. It is that Europe risks losing control over the systems that determine its economic and political future.

One of the report’s strongest arguments is that climate, competitiveness and security are not competing agendas.

The technologies needed to decarbonise Europe are often the same technologies needed to strengthen it.

Clean energy reduces exposure to imported fossil fuels. Battery recycling creates domestic sources of critical materials. Advanced manufacturing improves industrial productivity. Sovereign compute strengthens control over data, AI and infrastructure. Fusion, quantum and space technologies could create entirely new industrial advantages.

The report rejects the idea that Europe must choose between climate action and security. Both point toward the same technologies, infrastructure and investment opportunities.

The energy transition is therefore not only about cutting emissions. It is about building cheaper, more reliable and more sovereign systems.

The report profiles companies already translating frontier research into commercial capability.

cylib is developing an end-to-end battery recycling process that can recover more than 90% of key materials, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese and graphite.

Dr Lilian Schwich, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of cylib, puts the strategic case plainly: “Closing the loop on battery materials is essential for Europe’s industrial competitiveness and strategic independence, not just climate action.”

She also argues that recovering raw materials locally can build more resilient supply chains while reducing the carbon footprint compared with primary extraction.

Space Forge is developing reusable satellites designed to manufacture advanced semiconductor materials in microgravity and return them to Earth.

Joshua Western, Co-Founder and CEO, explains the technical advantage: “By manufacturing in microgravity, we overcome Earth’s physical constraints to produce semiconductors that reduce energy losses by up to 50%.”

The opportunity goes beyond efficiency. As access to advanced chips becomes more strategic, Space Forge could give Europe a new route to producing high-performance semiconductor materials.

IQM is building superconducting quantum computers and the software needed to apply them to scientific and industrial problems.

Dr Jan Goetz, Co-Founder and CEO, argues that technological sovereignty cannot be secured through policy alone: “Only with sufficient growth capital can we ensure that our technological sovereignty is built on our own emerging breakthroughs, not just policy.”

That line captures one of the report’s central tensions. Europe produces world-class science, but many breakthroughs still struggle to secure the capital, infrastructure and demand required to scale.

The same challenge appears in space.

Isar Aerospace designed, developed and built its launch vehicle largely in-house, reaching its first orbital launch attempt seven years after the company was founded.

Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, Partner at the NATO Innovation Fund, describes the company as an example of how private capital can help ambitious companies: “Bridge the valley of death between startup and large-scale deployment.”

His wider point is that venture funding was essential not only to the company’s development, but to expanding Europe’s sovereign access to space.

The report identifies three priorities.

First, venture capital must scale to match Europe’s scientific ambition. Europe produces 18.1% of global scientific publications, compared with 13.1% from the US, yet the US invests a far larger share of GDP in venture capital.

Second, policy must accelerate deployment. Faster permitting, stronger public procurement and funding instruments built for the pace of technology markets can help companies move from research to industrial scale.

Third, Europe must back the foundations of power directly: cheap and abundant energy, domestic critical-material supply chains, European compute capacity and advanced manufacturing.

The report is for investors and LPs assessing where Europe’s next industrial champions may emerge. It is also for founders building capital-intensive technologies, corporates strengthening supply chains and policymakers shaping industrial strategy, procurement and technology policy.

Its timing matters.

Energy volatility, rising AI demand, geopolitical fragmentation and tighter control over critical materials are exposing the limits of Europe’s old model. At the same time, frontier companies across energy, quantum, space, recycling and advanced manufacturing are reaching the point where commercial deployment is becoming possible.

The opportunity is not simply to make Europe less vulnerable. It is to build the companies, infrastructure and capabilities that make it powerful again.