The AI Act's transparency chapter took effect on August 2, and this time Brussels did not blink. Chatbots must now identify themselves, deepfakes must be labelled, and AI-generated content must carry machine-readable marks, with fines reaching €15 million or 3% of global turnover.
What we flagged two weeks ago as a deadline likely to slip instead arrived intact. The harder question is whether the national authorities meant to enforce it are ready, and in at least one member state the answer is plainly no.
Policy & Regulation
The Commission published its transparency rulebook two days before enforcing it
The AI Office released guidelines on transparency obligations alongside a Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content, signed by more than 180 organisations before the rules took effect. The package covers systems that talk to people, generate synthetic media, infer emotions, or produce text on matters of public interest.
Enforcement splits three ways: national market surveillance authorities, the AI Office for systems under its own supervision, and the European Data Protection Supervisor when EU institutions are the ones deploying. Signing the code is voluntary, which makes the signatory list the clearest early read on who intends to comply and who intends to argue.
Poland's AI law is in force, its AI regulator is three months away
President Karol Nawrocki signed Poland's national AI Systems Act, giving the country a legal basis for applying the AI Act. The supervisory body it creates, the Commission for Development and Security of Artificial Intelligence, is expected to take around three months to stand up.
Until then Polish firms face penalties of up to €15 million or 3% of turnover from a regulator with no inspectors yet. Lawyers quoted in the Polish trade press say finance, telecoms and energy are broadly prepared, while smaller firms still assume that using off-the-shelf tools puts them outside the rules.
(WNP)
Brussels opens bidding for seven AI gigafactories
The Commission and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking launched the call on July 30, putting €10 billion of public money against an expected €20 billion from private investors. Four smaller sites carrying at least 75,000 AI chips each can draw up to €500 million; three larger ones with at least 100,000 chips can draw up to €1 billion.
Ten countries have said they want to host one: Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Bids close on November 12, with funding decisions expected in early 2027.
Capital & Investment
European tech took more money through fewer doors in the first half
Startups on the continent raised €44.1 billion across roughly 1,740 deals in the first half of 2026, the lowest half-year deal count since 2020. Six of the ten largest rounds cleared €1 billion each, and AI took the biggest sector share at €5.9 billion.
The UK accounted for €18.7 billion across 423 deals, ahead of Germany at €6.3 billion and France at €6.0 billion. Capital is recovering while access to it narrows, which is a different problem from the drought of 2025 and calls for different policy answers.
(Tech.eu)
Index Ventures raises $2 billion on the back of its Wiz payout
The firm closed a $900 million venture fund and a $400 million seed fund, then added $700 million to the growth fund it launched in 2024, lifting deployable capital to $3.5 billion. The raise follows the $32 billion sale of Wiz to Alphabet, where Index held roughly 12%.
Index describes its hunting ground as the ten-hour time zone running from Tel Aviv to San Francisco, which is a polite way of saying European founders compete for this money with everyone else. Read it as a signal about exits rather than about Europe.
Highland Europe closes €1.1 billion for growth-stage scaleups
Fund VI brings the firm's total raised since 2012 to about €3.75 billion, and it lands after a year in which Highland turned more than $1.1 billion of portfolio value into cash. The exits behind that figure include the $3 billion sale of Nexthink, the agreed acquisition of Huel by Danone, and the Nasdaq listing of Bending Spoons.
Growth capital has been Europe's thinnest layer for a decade, largely because there were too few exits to recycle into new funds. This is what the other side of that cycle looks like.
(Tech.eu)
Talent & Workforce
Europe will miss its 2030 tech workforce target by five million people
Eurofound puts EU employment of ICT specialists at 10.3 million against a Digital Decade target of 20 million by 2030. That headcount is up 81% since 2011 and still five million short.
The agency points at education and vocational systems that have not kept pace, with labour migration from outside the EU now the main driver of recruitment. Women remain fewer than one in five ICT specialists, and the sector carries a gender pay gap close to 20% against an economy-wide 13%.
(RTÉ)
One to Watch
Whether the chip selloff changes what Europe funds
Semiconductor stocks fell hard in the last week of July, with Micron down as much as 13% in a session and Korea's KOSPI hitting circuit breakers as Samsung and SK Hynix slid. Reports of Chinese mass production of chipmaking equipment sat among the triggers, which puts pressure on ASML's position rather than on demand for chips.
European investors reading this as an opening argue that value shifts from fabrication toward design and architecture, where capital requirements are lower and the continent already has teams. Watch whether that argument reaches the Chips Act review, or stays a talking point among venture funds.
(Sifted)