I agree that Estonia is doing great and a role model in many ways, but the by far biggest EU software company is still German: SAP
Also, have a look at the very successful ELISE AI initiative: https://www.elise-ai.eu/
In my comment edit, I mentioned the 20 year limit specifically, because the ossification in last decades is real. The US generates a lot more startups, even the London scene is livelier than the rest of Europe taken together.
Germany alone has roughly half of all so-called hidden-champions world-wide. Many of them are in High-tech.
Europe lacks the large internet and software companies. Though T-Mobile is German and known in the US. SAP provides the software which runs large enterprises. But high-tech is much more, it's factory automation, it's aerospace (think Airbus), it's biotech (think Biontech), ... Soft- and hardware are a crucial factor for those.
But there were times when German companies actually were world leaders in the big things as well, not just reliable suppliers to foreign big players. Don't you count this as a regression?
We have the world leader in civil aerospace in France/Germany, Many high-speed trains in the world are coming from France or Germany. There are many large high-tech sectors.
It's nice that Estonia is successful, but it's not where the next big chip manufacturing sites will be build. Intel and TSMC are in talks to move to the former East Germany (Saxony has roughly 70000 employees already in the chip manufacturing industry). The big Internet exchange node is in Frankfurt.
The EU has a lot to catch up in many countries, but it's not that we have no high-tech.
They will be an even better solution when we have small electric jets, especially for inter-European flights.
Do you think the first practical electric jet will come from a subsidized EU development plan -- or from a VP funded US company?
I was traveling this week with both, an Airbus from Lufthansa and high-speed trains from Siemens.
Not for short to medium distances they're not. Everything under 3-4 hours of train is faster, more comfortable and with much less hassle than flying (going to an airport, security checks, uncomfortable seating, interruptions for take off and landing, long queueing).
Sure if you think its a good idea to blow lots of carbon in the air and a punch of emissions with led all over the continent.
Trains absolutely make sense in the waste majority cases in Europe.
And having high speed dedicated lanes also has the additional benefit of removing capacity from older lines and allowing more regional and more cargo.
Building trains, both conventional and high speed is a huge win.
P.S:
The current lead in terms of electric viable plains I would say is Heart Aerospace from Sweden.
The trouble is that this has been known since at least the late 1990s, discussed quite often, plans made, and yet the gap hasn't grown appreciably smaller. It has arguably widened. 15 years ago, you could choose from a plentitude of European feature phones. Now the vast majority of our own mobile phone market is dominated by US or East Asian products.
Btw., I'm a happy user of a bunch of US tech products. It's not that I need to replace all that. I want the EU to be competitive, but I'm also using other stuff. Apple in the recent years made some excellent product technology, like their chips, which are produced in Taiwan, also with a lot of technology from Europe.
Sadly that isn't that many. And China and Japan are doing their own. The US plans to use Japan technology (Texas). So does Indonesia.
Its just a smaller industry.
Siemens signed with Egypt (8 billion Euros), Turkey, ...
Deutsche Bahn is investing ten billion Euros in modernizing their fleet.