Inside Europe’s most innovative companies

Europe spends less of its GDP on research and development than the U.S., Japan, or China. Its R&D intensity has held at roughly 2.1% for years, compared with 3.45% in the U.S. and Japan and 2.6% in China. Yet the continent continues to punch above its weight, generating world-class ideas and breakthroughs: the European Patent Office logged a record number of patent applications last year. Fortune’s Europe’s Most Innovative Companies ranking, now in its second year and produced in partnership with Statista, showcases the businesses helping drive that performance. The list spans 300 companies across 18 countries and 21 industries, highlighting organizations that are pushing boundaries in fields ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to telecommunications, retail, and financial services. Each was evaluated across three dimensions of innovation: product, process, and culture. Together, the ranking paints a picture of a continent defined by deep industrial expertise, fresh ambition, and a capacity to reinvent itself. At a moment of rapid technological and economic change, these companies are helping shape Europe’s future. Europe isn’t winning the AI race, but it’s powering it Europe may lag behind the U.S. and China across much of the tech landscape, but it has assembled a formidable semiconductor ecosystem. ASML tops this year’s ranking. Behind the glass walls of the Dutch company’s cleanrooms, white-coated engineers work with machines precise enough to print features just a few nanometers wide onto silicon, pushing the boundaries of how the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips are built. ASML is pushing the AI race forward with two breakthrough innovations. The first is the Twinscan XT:260, a specialized tool built for advanced chip packaging. The second is its High-NA EUV systems, machines that act like ultra-fine laser pencils, printing microscopic chip features that let tech giants pack record-breaking processing pow