EU puts emphasis on “Made in Europe” - Aims to reduce dependence on US digital infrastructure
The European Union is under pressure to boost its technological capabilities and reduce its heavy reliance on the United States for digital infrastructure and services. The move comes as transatlantic ties are no longer as strong as they once were.
European data is mostly stored in US cloud services, with companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google owning over two-thirds of the European market. Europe accounts for only 10 percent of the global microchip market. US-based companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are leading the artificial intelligence revolution.
Germany's incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that Europe must "achieve independence from the US", following US President Donald Trump's continued tariff threats.
Over the past year, technology policymakers have been discussing the idea of the EuroStack initiative. They argue that to build a European technology infrastructure, three layers of essential technologies stacked on top of each other need to be addressed simultaneously.
The first layer is infrastructure, such as microchips; the second relates to intermediaries, such as cloud platforms, a digital ID or digital euros; while the third concerns applications, connected and driven by artificial intelligence.
Sovereignty flows through these three layers: chips made in Europe to power data centers and cloud services that store data locally, on which European artificial intelligence models are trained. Analysts say the point is not to eliminate US technology, but at least "to create a space for European technology."
Europe has had promising projects at all levels, but they have failed or been unsustainable in the long term. Cloud services are the biggest weakness of the old continent. They act as the backbone for many public services and store sensitive data.
Despite the Franco-German Gaia-X push to convince European companies to store data locally with European providers, these services have steadily declined in recent years.
EuroStack's advocates see the tide as turning only with sustained investment, guaranteed government demand, and unified rules for data transfer and security. Cybersecurity experts say it's "crazy to continue moving European data to American cloud services."
The EU executive has started to push for more European sovereign technology, particularly in the artificial intelligence sector. Increasing technological capacity in Europe has been one of the Commission's main objectives. In December, it announced up to €2 billion in investments in seven European countries.
The United States immediately “humiliated” this amount, promising a $500 billion plan for artificial intelligence in January. In response, the EU made an effort in February to mobilize 200 billion euros in the sector from private investors, companies and member states.
The scale of the investment required is likely to be the biggest obstacle to building a European technology infrastructure. Artificial intelligence hardware is only one of the three layers needed for a sovereign structure.
Experts point out that a budget of 300 billion euros is needed to build EuroStack over the next 10 years. This could be a very heavy burden on the EU's financial capacity at a time when hundreds of billions of euros are being used to increase defense capacity.
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