High-tech program should put the Netherlands on the map worldwide

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With the support of the National Growth Fund, more than 330 parties from the business community and knowledge institutions will work together on new high-tech machines and production technologies to bring these developments to the market.

The goal of NXTGEN HIGHTECH is to bring the Netherlands back to the top and to contribute to solutions for major societal challenges.

To achieve this, the NXTGEN-HIGHTECH program will invest approximately 1 billion euros until 2030 and will boost the Dutch economy with 330 partners. The National Growth Fund supports this program with 450 million euros.

Over the next seven years, we will be working hard on smart solutions in six core domains (agrifood, biomedical production technology, energy, composites, laser satellite communication and semiconductors). Right across these domains, the key technologies, systems engineering and smart industry, play a crucial role. Within the domain of agrifood, for example, smart solutions are used to look at applications of sensor technology and robotics. These applications are already widely used in other domains, but food production has so far benefited little from the growing robotisation and automation.

A universal standard for the pharmaceutical industry and the large-scale production of organs-on-chips is also being considered. Within laser-satellite communication, work is being done on safe and sustainable data communication equipment. The energy domain focuses on the development of an integrated, scalable production chain for fuel cells, electrolyzers, batteries and plasma conversion. This makes the process industry more sustainable.

The field of composites, with the development of machines for light materials, lays the foundation for a sustainable aviation industry. In the field of semiconductors, work is being done on equipment for faster and more energy-efficient chips, which partly switch with light. This is an important development, because the demand for chips is expected to double by 2030. The European chip regulation therefore aims to strengthen European leadership and increase production capacity to 20% of the global chip market. The program can give the Netherlands a key position in the market.

Finally, NXTGEN HIGHTECH aims to have developed a system for autonomously operating factories by 2030, with international standards and digital product passports. This ensures a good digital infrastructure and more security within the supply chain. The ambition of the smart industry sub-programme is to double productivity capacity in Dutch industry over the next 20 years.

Parallel to the developments in the six domains, efforts are being made to strengthen the competencies of systems thinking. The Netherlands already has a thriving high-tech industry and a great deal of experience in system engineering. But it remains a challenge to properly transfer the knowledge of increasingly complex systems to the next generation. Together with colleges of higher vocational education and universities, NXTGEN HIGHTECH lays the building blocks for sustainable cooperation in the high-tech industry.

The aim is for ‘The Dutch Systems Engineering Approach’ to be fully embedded in Dutch education by 2030. This approach offers more job prospects in the high-tech industry and ensures a good connection to the rapidly changing labor market.