Digital: bridging the digital divide and administrative simplification

RPD commitments

The Regional Policy Declaration addresses the digital transition from several angles:

Digital divide

• Digital inclusion plan — support for digitally disadvantaged groups (seniors, newcomers, people in precarious situations)
• Public Digital Spaces — maintaining and strengthening the existing network
• Digital mediation — training municipal staff and social workers

Administrative simplification

• Easy Brussels — single digital window for regional administrative procedures
• IRISbox — online services platform, to be modernised and expanded
• "Only once" principle — stop asking citizens for data the administration already holds

Smart city

• Paradigm (CIRB) — regional IT centre, smart city strategy operator
• Open data — expansion of the regional open data portal
• Connectivity — wifi and 5G coverage in public spaces

Brussels as AI capital

• European positioning — attracting technology companies, in partnership with BeCentral and universities
• AI in government — targeted experiments to improve public services

Key agencies

• Paradigm (CIRB) — IT centre for the Brussels-Capital Region, technical operator
• Easy Brussels — administrative simplification agency
• IRISbox — online services platform

Physical Infrastructure: Data Centres

The 'AI capital' ambition relies on expanding physical infrastructure. The KevlinX BRU01 data centre (Neder-Over-Heembeek, 32 MW, ~150 jobs) has been operational since January 2026 within the Region's territory. Belgium's data centre electricity consumption is estimated at 3.2 TWh (4% of national electricity), with projections of 7 to 15.5 TWh by 2035. Data centres are absent from the PRDD and have no specific urban planning category.

Source: KevlinX, Elia, DPR 2026.

Structural data: Mini-Bru IBSA 2026

The Mini-Bru 2026 places Brussels at the forefront of digital in Belgium:

Brussels has the highest rate of advanced digital skills in the country and the strongest SME digital intensity, underpinned by an ecosystem of 28,111 ICT jobs.

Regional R&D reaches EUR 2,532.9M (2.45% of GDP), with 15,367 researchers (FTE) of whom 71.9% are in the private sector.

Source: BISA Mini-Bru 2026 (Statbel, Eurostat, Belspo, 2023-2025 data).

Innoviris freezes all new R&D projects (March 2026)

The regional research and innovation fund Innoviris has announced it will not launch any calls for proposals in 2026, following a budget cut of ~20%. Ongoing projects from 2025 will continue, but no new projects will be funded.

Impact on the digital sector:

• The freeze directly affects the digital innovation projects that Innoviris funded in partnership with Brussels universities and SMEs
• The RPD ambition to position Brussels as an "AI capital" is undermined by the loss of the public R&D lever
• The regional R&D budget (EUR 2,532.9M, 2.45% of GDP) already fell below the European target of 3%
• The private sector accounts for 71.9% of researchers — without public co-funding, mixed projects (public-private) lose their rationale

The measure fits into the broader austerity context: Hub.brussels (international network cut by ⅔), Visit Brussels (subsidies 22→8M EUR), federal VAT increase. The Brussels innovation ecosystem is hit from four sides.

Source: BRUZZ (27 March 2026).

Sources and methodology

The commitments documented above come from the official RPD text and corroborating press sources covering the government agreement of 12 February 2026.