I think that comparing only the technology sector gives a wrong perspective on the amount of research being done: According to the National Science Foundation of the USA https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20206/publication-output-by-re... The EU actually produces more research papers than China or the US. (of course that isn't a perfect metric, but it's still an indicator)

I think that many people conflate "innovation" with "big companies" which isn't the case: You don't need a google/Apple/Facebook equivalent to innovate (and having such towering companies may hurt in the long run, but wether or not big "googlesque" companies are a good thing is an entirely different question)

There are also a lot of unknown companies that have huge influence on the overall market by being global leaders in very narrow non-consumer facing areas, so called "hidden champions". These companies have become more important due to globalisation. To give a concrete example: While your phone wasn't built in the EU, odds are that it was at least partially produced with machines by ASML, a company that produces lithography machines for ~80% of chip manufacturers.

Also, due to this site here literally being "hackernews" and the pervasiveness of digital systems in normal life, we are getting a pretty skewd look at the industry as a whole: For example, the biggest chemical company in the world is BASF, a european company and the chemical company Bayer now owns a majority share of agricultural chemistry.