The Stack opens in Amsterdam: Europe's bid to stop outsourcing its AI future

AMSTERDAM, 18 JUNE 2026 — Europe boasts world-class research talent, deep technical universities and a track record of building category-defining technology companies. Still we continue to buy AI services rather than build them — from foundation models to the agents and applications powered by them. The recent news that Anthropic's latest AI models are no longer available to Europe shows just how vulnerable that dependence is. To illustrate: the US has produced 40 AI foundation models while Europe has produced just 3. The Stack, a new AI hub opening in Amsterdam later this year, is founded to change that by giving Europe's best AI builders a physical home, and plugging them into a network of leading AI hubs and companies across the continent and the world.

Opening in September 2026 across 4,500 m² at the Jacob Bontiusplaats 9 in Oostenburg, Amsterdam, The Stack will host a highly curated group of the most promising fast-growing start-ups from day one. Among the first confirmed tenants are Ubicloud, Dawnguard and Iconic Works. The Stack is built on a simple conviction: when tech founders, operators and investors share one home, they create gravity. The infrastructure extends beyond desk space as it creates a visible presence, and pulls on talent, capital and attention that the same companies operating separately would never have. Workspaces, labs and development programmes give founders a base; the real power is the network and community that forms around them. At the heart of the building is a purpose-designed event space that opens the building to the wider tech ecosystem, hosting curated programmes, founder sessions, investor days, hackathons and product demos. These turn everyday collisions into funding rounds, product launches and partnerships.

This makes it a place where proximity of talent and innovation becomes a competitive advantage. By convening the full AI stack, from compute and hardware to models, platforms and applications. The Stack is built with intent to accelerate a European sovereign AI stack and reinforce the Eindhoven–Amsterdam axis as a leading corridor for AI innovation. Determined in its ambitions, by 2029, The Stack aims to grow to 12,000 m² and house 200+ founders.

AI entrepreneurs will live and work side by side, often becoming each other's first customers, while curated programming, events and introductions to corporates, VCs and fellow founders help them turn prototypes into globally scalable companies. Rather than operating in isolation, The Stack serves as a central node in a wider network of tech & AI hubs in the Netherlands and across Europe, positioning Amsterdam as the place where AI meets real industry. Through partners such as Techleap it is connected to leading universities and research institutions in the Netherlands and abroad.

The initiative is co-founded by Dutch AI entrepreneurs Lennard Zwart (Ascending AI), Maarten Stolk (Deeploy, Enjins) and Philip Gast (AdamI, The AI Foundry), alongside Techleap. The Stack is financed primarily with more than €10 million in private capital. Global quantitative trading firm IMC, whose edge is built on world-class research, applied AI, and machine learning, joins as a founding partner. The Stack is also supported by founding partners ABN AMRO, ClickHouse, Deloitte, Google, Miro and Prosus, and backed by the City of Amsterdam. The Stack's founding director is Esther Bisschop, whose previous company Th3rd was acquired by Snap Inc. in 2022.

All partners contribute expertise and networks, not just names — among them American technology companies, whose involvement reflects a simple truth: building European AI capability and working with global players are not mutually exclusive. Sovereignty is not obtained by exclusion but through collaboration. The goal is to develop European intellectual property, European companies and European jobs, while remaining closely connected to the global AI ecosystem.

“The news that Anthropic's latest AI models are now no longer available to Europe is a harsh wake‑up call: our digital infrastructure still relies too heavily on players outside our continent. The US and China are racing ahead, while Europe continues to watch from the sidelines. That's not because we lack ambition, but because that ambition needs a physical place like The Stack. A place where ambition meets capital, meets customers, meets the kind of daily collision between brilliant people that turn an idea into a company. That is what The Stack is. We are not here to celebrate European AI potential. We are here to make sure it stops being potential and starts being a product.” Esther Bisschop · Founding Director, The Stack

The Stack is one answer to a question Europe can no longer afford to ignore. For too long, the continent has produced exceptional AI talent, watched it leave, and bought back its output at a premium. That changes this September. Europe has never lacked the ingredients for a world-class AI industry. It has lacked the place to build one. Now it has one.

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