Nagel links European innovation to infrastructure and financing

Deutsche Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel delivered opening remarks at the conference “Trust and Innovation – The Future of Finance” in Dublin on 18 September 2026, arguing that Europe’s innovation challenge is mainly about scaling, financing, and infrastructure.

• Nagel said Europe should lower regulatory and administrative barriers, improve access to funding through a savings and investments union, and strengthen infrastructure for AI, cloud, and quantum computing.
• He cited Mistral raising 3 billion euro and Anthropic raising 100 billion USD, and said reliable energy grids, storage, computing power, and fibre optic cables are critical; he also referenced Mario Draghi’s FT article and Christine Lagarde’s comments on Europe’s “data center gap.”