I'd say being able to compete instead of trying. I bet a lot of euro companies would love to compete against nvidia, amd, intel or tsmc, globalfoundries, etc. They just can't.
The UK had (damnit) ARM. Arguably the heart of modern computing.
Europe produced the web.
The idea Europe is a technical backwater is cope. The truth is because the capital is elsewhere European innovations get hijacked by (primarily) American companies.
The plantation described above is less complex than the ultra-cleanrooms used by semiconductor producers like TSMC.