The report The Tech Corridor, written by VU Amsterdam special professor Haroon Sheikh on behalf of the Amsterdam Economic Board, analyses the opportunities that closer collaboration between Amsterdam and Brainport Eindhoven could generate. The Amsterdam metropolitan region counts more than 3,400 technology companies, providing over 131,000 jobs and home to more than 420 AI startups and scale-ups. Brainport Eindhoven is responsible for 57 per cent of private R&D spending in the Netherlands and accounts for more than half of all Dutch patent applications. The High Tech Campus in Eindhoven brings together more than 12,500 researchers, engineers and innovators across more than 200 companies. Together, the two regions represent more than a quarter of Dutch GDP.

Amsterdam’s strength lies in AI, digital platforms, fintech and international data infrastructure. A significant share of European internet traffic flows through the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX). Companies including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Adyen, Booking.com and Just Eat Takeaway are based there, alongside research institutions such as the University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica. Brainport Eindhoven dominates in semiconductors and high-tech systems, with global players such as ASML, NXP Semiconductors and Signify. New economic value tends to emerge precisely at the intersection of those two worlds, the report argues.

The researchers identify nine strategic areas of synergy: AI for applications, smart connected devices, AI for chips and machines, chips for future AI, AI for raw materials and chips, defence technology, data and AI infrastructure, new digital media, and so-called world models. A concrete recommendation is to establish shared experimentation and testing facilities for AI, data and compute infrastructure, so that knowledge and capacity from both regions can genuinely be combined. Such shared facilities barely exist elsewhere at this level and could give the corridor a distinctive position relative to European competitors.

It is striking that Amsterdam and Eindhoven currently collaborate surprisingly little, despite geographical proximity and complementary strengths. The physical distance is small, but the perceived distance is not, the authors note. Cultural differences and a lack of shared networks play a role. Among the recommendations to change this are organising more occasions for encounter, making better use of existing physical connections, and making smarter use of the spatial opportunities that Almere offers as a midpoint between the two regions.

Two more substantive recommendations target Amsterdam’s knowledge base. The reports argue for bringing a frontier AI lab to the Amsterdam region: a research institute where the most advanced AI techniques are developed, designed to serve as a magnet for international top talent. Amsterdam already counts more than 6,300 AI students and hosts one of Europe’s largest AI ecosystems, but lacks sufficient technically trained graduates to sustain that position in the long term, the researchers conclude. A fifth technical university is also proposed, described by some as an MIT on the Amstel, to be formed by merging the science faculties of the University of Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit. The report itself stops short of an explicit recommendation on this point, but does reopen the debate.

A companion Rabobank study places both regions in European perspective. Individually, Amsterdam and Brainport rank among Europe’s leading innovation ecosystems, but both still lag behind regions such as Munich, Dublin, Paris and Copenhagen in terms of R&D investment and capital intensity. Integrated corridors elsewhere demonstrate what is possible: the Munich region and Route 128 around Boston function as ecosystems in which knowledge, capital and infrastructure reinforce one another. Jessica Peters-Hondelink, CEO of the Amsterdam Economic Board, sums up the urgency: “In the Netherlands we are good at pilots and proofs-of-concept, but we struggle to scale these up into impactful companies.” The tech corridor is intended to change that.