Digital Ireland 2030: a strategic leap for Europe’s applied AI, innovation and tech cooperation

Ireland has formally unveiled its new National Digital & AI Strategy – Digital Ireland: Connecting our People, Securing our Future, a comprehensive roadmap to 2030 that places digital technologies and artificial intelligence at the core of national competitiveness, public sector reform and European engagement. Published on 18 February 2026 by the Department of the Taoiseach, the strategy merits close attention for the way it translates European ambitions on AI, digital infrastructure and trust into a concrete national delivery framework.

Published on 18 February 2026 by the Department of the Taoiseach, Digital Ireland 2030 is not a generic vision statement. It is a detailed and operational roadmap that places digital technologies and AI at the centre of Ireland’s economic model, public sector reform and European engagement. Built around five mutually reinforcing ambitions – Apply, Grow, Invest, Lead and Empower – the strategy sets out 20 high-level objectives supported by 90 concrete deliverables, with clearly identified lead departments and timelines extending to 2030.

Beyond its structure, the strategy conveys a strong message: Ireland intends to consolidate its position as a leading location for applied AI development and deployment, combining regulation, infrastructure, research and enterprise adoption in a single, coherent framework. For European innovation actors, startups and research organisations – and particularly for French stakeholders already engaged in AI factories, HPC and deep-tech ecosystems – this document outlines a landscape of concrete opportunities for alignment and cooperation.

1. Digital Ireland 2030: a coherent national framework with clear objectives and delivery mechanisms

Digital Ireland 2030 sets out a comprehensive and operational national framework to guide Ireland’s digital and artificial intelligence transition to the end of the decade. The strategy is explicitly structured around five mutually reinforcing ambitions – Apply, Grow, Invest, Lead and Empower – translated into 20 high‑level objectives and 90 concrete deliverables to be implemented across government, agencies and the wider ecosystem.

The framework is anchored at the centre of government, under the responsibility of the Department of the Taoiseach and overseen by the Cabinet Committee on the Economy, Trade and Competitiveness. This governance arrangement reflects the cross‑cutting nature of digital and AI transformation and is designed to ensure delivery discipline, sequencing and accountability across multiple policy domains. Implementation is not delegated to a single department, but coordinated across public administration, enterprise agencies, research bodies and regulators.

A central quantitative target underpins the strategy’s ambition on delivery: by 2030, 100% of key public services are to be fully digitalised, with 90% of interactions expected to take place online. This objective is supported by concrete instruments, including a Life Events approach to service design, the introduction of digital‑readiness checks for new legislation, and the systematic publication of legislation in machine‑readable formats. Together, these measures aim to reduce administrative burden, improve interoperability and enable reuse of data and processes across sectors.

Digital Ireland 2030 also places strong emphasis on accelerating adoption of digital and AI technologies across the economy. A targeted sectoral strategy for AI adoption is foreseen, supported by the designation of AI Sector Champions and the creation of the Observatory for Business AI Readiness (OBAIR), which will generate real‑time intelligence on how enterprises use AI by sector and firm size. These tools are intended to inform policy adjustments, investment priorities and skills initiatives on an ongoing basis.

Investment in enabling infrastructure forms another core pillar of the framework. The strategy commits to the completion of gigabit broadband connectivity nationwide under the National Broadband Plan, the development of new subsea cable routes connecting Ireland to continental Europe, and the strengthening of national and European cybersecurity capacity through a new Cyber Security Strategy and a Cyber Security Research Centre of Excellence.

Research and innovation objectives are equally explicit. Digital Ireland 2030 provides for the establishment of a new AI Research Centre of Scale, the expansion of CeADAR as Ireland’s applied AI centre, the launch of an AI in Research Transformation Programme, and the development of a Quantum Centre of Excellence. These initiatives are designed to strengthen critical mass, support interdisciplinary research and accelerate pathways from research to application and commercialisation.

Skills and talent development underpin all other ambitions. The strategy commits to a new Roadmap for Technology Skills of the Future, the creation of a National Skills Observatory, and the launch of a one‑stop‑shop AI Skilling Platform for employers and individuals. It further commits to ensuring that all learners acquire foundational digital, AI and media literacy skills across curricula at all levels, complemented by a nationwide digital and AI skilling campaign.

Finally, Digital Ireland 2030 positions regulation and trust as enablers of adoption rather than constraints. The establishment of the AI Office of Ireland as the national coordinating authority for the EU AI Act, alongside an AI Regulatory Sandbox, aims to provide regulatory clarity, support compliance and enable responsible innovation. Ireland also commits to active engagement at EU level to advance digital simplification and coherent regulatory frameworks.

Taken together, these quantified objectives, named instruments and governance mechanisms illustrate how Digital Ireland 2030 moves beyond high‑level ambition. By aligning concrete actions, investment commitments and delivery structures across digital services, enterprise, research, infrastructure, skills and regulation, the strategy establishes a practical roadmap for sustained digital and AI transformation. This integrated framework provides the foundation for the more detailed analysis of innovation, startups and European cooperation developed in the following sections.

2. Research, technology and startups: scaling applied AI capabilities

Scaling research impact through applied AI and advanced computing

Access to advanced computing capacity is a foundational enabler of applied AI. In this context, Ireland’s CASPIr supercomputer, together with the country’s AI Factory Antenna within the EuroHPC ecosystem, provides researchers, startups and scale-ups with concrete pathways to train, test and deploy AI models at scale. These assets connect national research and innovation activities to European high-performance computing resources, enabling participation in large collaborative projects and supporting compute-intensive applications across sectors.

Digital Ireland 2030 places applied AI and technology transfer at the centre of its research and innovation policy. Rather than creating parallel structures, the strategy builds on existing strengths while significantly increasing scale, coordination and orientation towards impact. A cornerstone of this approach is the establishment of a new AI Research Centre of Scale, to be developed under the leadership of Research Ireland. The objective is to consolidate fragmented AI research capacity into a single, internationally visible centre capable of supporting large collaborative projects, attracting talent and interfacing directly with industry and public-sector users.

This centre is complemented by the continued expansion of CeADAR, Ireland’s national centre for applied AI, whose mandate is explicitly reinforced around industrial deployment, SME support and public-sector use cases. CeADAR’s role is not limited to research excellence; it functions as a translational layer, supporting proof-of-concept development, validation of AI models and early-stage adoption across sectors.

The strategy also introduces an AI in Research Transformation Programme, designed to mainstream AI capabilities across the wider research base. This programme targets disciplines beyond computer science, enabling AI adoption in areas such as life sciences, manufacturing, climate, energy and public policy. By embedding AI tools, data infrastructures and skills across domains, Ireland aims to increase the return on public R&D investment and accelerate interdisciplinary innovation.

A further structural element is the planned Quantum Centre of Excellence, which positions Ireland within Europe’s emerging quantum ecosystem. The strategy explicitly frames quantum technologies as complementary to AI and advanced computing, particularly in areas such as optimisation, secure communications and next-generation sensing. This alignment reflects a long-term view of Europe’s strategic technology stack rather than isolated investments.

From research to startups and scale-ups

Digital Ireland 2030 explicitly links research policy to startup creation and scale-up pathways. Research Ireland is tasked with strengthening mechanisms for AI spin-outs from higher education institutions, including clearer IP pathways, improved researcher mobility between academia and industry, and stronger alignment with enterprise supports. The National AI Fellowship Programme plays a dual role here, embedding researchers in the public sector while also facilitating circulation of talent into the private sector.

Ireland’s startup strategy is reinforced by its broader ecosystem advantages. Sixteen of the world’s top twenty global technology companies and eight leading foundation-model providers have established their main EU base in Ireland. The strategy leverages this concentration to create spillovers for indigenous startups, through access to talent, customers, datasets and international markets. Public policy is explicitly oriented towards ensuring that this multinational presence translates into local capability building rather than enclave development.

Accelerating enterprise adoption with measurable instruments

A central diagnosis of the strategy is the uneven uptake of AI across the enterprise base. While large firms have moved quickly, adoption among SMEs remains limited. Digital Ireland 2030 addresses this gap through a set of targeted, measurable instruments rather than generic awareness campaigns.

A Sectoral AI Adoption Strategy, to be launched in 2026, will define concrete adoption targets and milestones for priority sectors, including manufacturing, pharma, medtech, financial services and agri-food. This will be operationalised through an Enterprise Ireland AI Adoption Roadmap, tailored by sector and company maturity level. The appointment of AI Sector Champions is intended to anchor these efforts in industry leadership rather than purely administrative processes.

The creation of the Observatory for Business AI Readiness (OBAIR) is a key innovation. OBAIR will collect continuous data on enterprise AI usage, disaggregated by firm size, sector and level of sophistication. This real-time intelligence will inform policy adjustments, skills investment and funding priorities, allowing government intervention to remain responsive rather than static.

Support for SMEs is further strengthened through a nationwide AI and Digital Literacy Campaign, delivered in partnership with business representative bodies and Ireland’s European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs). Ireland’s four EDIHs – CeADAR, FactoryxChange, ENTIRE and DATA2SUSTAIN – provide concrete services such as test-before-invest facilities, technical validation, access to finance advice and training. Under the next phase of the EDIH programme (2026–2029), additional EU funding will enable these hubs to significantly scale their AI offerings to SMEs and public-sector organisations.

Regulatory certainty and pathways to scale

Innovation at scale requires regulatory clarity. Digital Ireland 2030 integrates enterprise policy with regulation through the establishment of an AI Regulatory Sandbox, with a particular focus on SMEs and startups. The sandbox provides a supervised environment in which companies can test AI systems under real-world conditions while engaging directly with regulators. This mechanism is designed both to de-risk innovation for firms and to provide regulators with early insight into emerging technologies.

Taken together, the measures set out in this chapter describe a tightly coupled system: large-scale research capacity, translational centres, targeted enterprise adoption instruments, real-time policy intelligence and regulatory pathways to scale. Rather than relying on isolated flagship projects, Digital Ireland 2030 seeks to create a continuous pipeline from research to deployment, positioning Ireland as a European reference point for applied AI innovation.

3. French and European cooperation: Ireland as a strategic digital partner

Building on the strategic framework and technological foundations outlined above, this section examines how Digital Ireland 2030 is positioned within the European project and how it opens concrete avenues for bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

A strategy embedded in the European project

Digital Ireland 2030 is explicitly aligned with EU priorities, including the Digital Decade 2030 targets, the EU AI Act, NIS2 and forthcoming cyber‑resilience frameworks. Ireland positions itself as a proactive contributor to Europe’s digital agenda, advocating regulatory coherence, proportionality and simplification in order to support innovation and competitiveness within the Single Market.

A central institutional pillar of this alignment is the establishment of the AI Office of Ireland as the national coordinating authority for the EU AI Act. Beyond its compliance role, the Office is conceived as an interface between regulators, innovators and researchers, providing guidance, outreach and structured dialogue with industry. Coupled with the AI Regulatory Sandbox, this architecture reflects a distinctly European approach to AI governance: rules‑based, but deliberately designed to remain operational, iterative and innovation‑enabling.

Crucially, Ireland’s participation in the EuroHPC ecosystem through its AI Factory Antenna gives this regulatory posture a concrete technological counterpart. The Irish AI Factory Antenna is not envisaged as a standalone national asset, but as a node within a wider European network of AI factories. In this context, emerging links with the French AI Factory are particularly strategic. They point towards future models of cooperation based on shared access to compute, cross‑border experimentation, workload federation and joint applied‑AI use cases, notably in health, manufacturing and public services. This evolving connection illustrates how national AI factory investments can be leveraged collectively to strengthen Europe’s overall AI capacity.

Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2026 further reinforces this positioning. The planned International AI and Digital Summit is intended not only as a showcase event, but as a platform to advance concrete European cooperation on trusted AI, infrastructure and industrial deployment at a moment of intensifying global competition.

Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2026 adds further weight. The planned International AI and Digital Summit is intended to showcase Europe’s capacity to combine trusted AI, industrial deployment and regulatory leadership at a time of intensifying global competition.

Convergence with French priorities

For French stakeholders, the convergences are striking. France’s strong position in AI research, advanced computing and industrial deployment finds a natural complement in Ireland’s applied, ecosystem-driven approach. Both countries emphasise access to compute, AI factories, sectoral deployment and the translation of research into industrial and public-sector use cases.

Joint research projects, shared access to computing infrastructure, co-development of AI solutions for health, manufacturing and public services, and cross-border startup collaborations all fit naturally within the framework set by Digital Ireland 2030. Ireland’s strong presence of global technology companies, combined with its pro-innovation regulatory stance and deep integration into EU programmes, makes it a pragmatic partner and operational platform for French and European actors.

2026 as a turning point

Taken together, the strategy’s timelines, quantified objectives and governance mechanisms suggest that 2026–2030 will be a decisive period. With concrete deliverables ranging from digitalising all key public services, to establishing new research centres, regulatory sandboxes, AI factories and skills platforms, Ireland positions itself not just as a participant but as a connector within Europe’s digital and AI ecosystem.

Conclusion: a credible, operational and outward-looking digital strategy

Taken together, the strategic framework, technological instruments and cooperation mechanisms described in this article illustrate how Digital Ireland 2030 translates ambition into delivery.

Digital Ireland 2030 stands out for its level of detail and execution focus. It combines political leadership, quantified objectives and operational instruments across the full digital value chain. By placing the state at the centre of digital transformation, investing heavily in applied AI and infrastructure, and embedding its strategy within the European project, Ireland offers a model that moves beyond aspiration towards delivery.

For French and European actors in research, innovation and startups, this strategy is less a policy document than an open invitation. For France in particular, whose position as a European AI powerhouse rests on strong research, advanced computing capacity and an increasingly structured AI industrial policy, Digital Ireland 2030 offers a complementary platform: a place to connect infrastructures, align applied use cases and translate European ambition into operational cooperation. It is an invitation to collaborate, to experiment, and to build together the next phase of Europe’s digital and AI capabilities, grounded in trust, competitiveness and shared infrastructure.

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