요약
This report maps UK and Dutch AI ecosystems, identifying collaboration opportunities in health, agrifood and compute. The UK offers scale, frontier research and investment; the Netherlands offers specialisation and public-private coordination.
본문
This report compares the UK and Netherlands AI ecosystems and identifies practical opportunities for bilateral collaboration. The countries are complementary rather than direct competitors: the UK offers scale, frontier research, investment and global reach, while the Netherlands offers industrial specialisation and public-private coordination. Priority areas are life sciences and health, agrifood and agritech, and compute infrastructure.
Mapping AI Ecosystems in the Netherlands and the United KingdomOpportunities for bilateral collaboration and action
ResearchPublished Oct 8, 2026
This research was sponsored by UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)
Download PDF
This report maps the artificial intelligence (AI) research and innovation ecosystems of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and identifies opportunities for deeper bilateral collaboration. Drawing on desk research, policy analysis, scientometric and patent data and stakeholder engagement, it compares the countries’ ecosystem structures, capabilities, policy approaches and sectoral strengths.
The report examines three priority areas for collaboration: AI in the life sciences and health technologies, AI applications in agrifood and agritech, and compute and ICT infrastructure for AI. In life sciences, collaboration could link UK commercial and translational scale with Dutch clinical integration and validation strengths. In agrifood, it could combine UK research, sensing, robotics and biotechnology capabilities with Dutch leadership in applied innovation and deployment. In compute, it could connect UK strengths in software, model development and AI compute expansion with Dutch capabilities in hardware, connectivity and sustainable digital infrastructure.
The report identifies practical opportunities for bilateral capability building, joint innovation and scale-up, and longer-term cooperation on resilient and trusted AI infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
UK and Dutch AI ecosystems are advanced but structurally distinct.
The UK has greater scale, global reach, frontier AI research capacity, private investment and commercial activity. The Netherlands has a smaller but highly connected ecosystem, underpinned by industrial specialisation, strong public–private coordination and integration with European research, innovation and regulatory frameworks. These differences create complementarity rather than direct competition.
Both countries share strategic priorities relating to AI-enabled growth, responsible innovation, compute and data infrastructure, skills and international cooperation with trusted partners.
Both prioritise AI-enabled productivity and growth, responsible innovation, resilient compute and data infrastructure, workforce capability, and international cooperation with trusted partners. This alignment provides a clear foundation for joint initiatives, particularly where collaboration can link UK scale and frontier capability with Dutch industrial testbeds, coordination mechanisms and EU connections.
The countries face shared challenges to AI growth and adoption.
In each country, translating research excellence and early-stage innovation into sustained domestic growth and widespread use remains challenging. Key obstacles include insufficient growth-stage finance; shortages of specialist, applied and interdisciplinary skills; and uneven AI uptake among SMEs and sector-specific users. Data availability and interoperability, access to large-scale and sovereign compute, reliance on non-European hyperscalers, and energy and grid capacity constraints further limit expansion. Addressing these shared barriers could be a practical focus for bilateral action on scale-up pathways, skills development, trusted infrastructure, data collaboration and responsible AI governance.
Recommendations
The opportunity matrices developed by the research team identify potential pathways for UK–Netherlands bilateral collaboration, prioritised according to their feasibility and potential impact:
- Compute for AI: Developing bilateral dialogues on trusted and sustainable compute, covering interoperability, researcher mobility, federated learning, energy-efficient infrastructure and resilient access to AI compute.
- Life sciences and health: Establish joint UK-Netherlands initiatives on AI-enabled health technologies, including capability mapping, targeted researcher and clinician secondments, joint training on trustworthy clinical AI and regulatory dialogue on safety and data standards.
- Agrifood and agritech: Develop joint agrifood AI living labs and Horizon Europe bids linking UK research, sensing, robotics and biotechnology capabilities with Dutch deployment-ready agrifood systems. Shared pilots should test AI tools across greenhouse, horticultural and open-field farming contexts.
Related Content
Topics
Document Details
- Copyright: RAND Corporation
- Availability: Web-Only
- Year: 2026
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA4654-1
- Document Number: RR-A4654-1
Citation
RAND Style Manual
Krishna, Shyam, Lara Marie Otto, Adam Urwick, Scott Warnier, Ishita Puri, and Manuel Hernandez Gonzalez, Mapping AI Ecosystems in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom: Opportunities for bilateral collaboration and action, RAND Corporation, RR-A4654-1, 2026. As of October 8, 2026: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4654-1.htmlChicago Manual of Style
Krishna, Shyam, Lara Marie Otto, Adam Urwick, Scott Warnier, Ishita Puri, and Manuel Hernandez Gonzalez, Mapping AI Ecosystems in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom: Opportunities for bilateral collaboration and action. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4654-1.html. BibTeX RISResearch conducted by
This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.