Brussels will present a set of new rules for microchips, cloud computing and artificial intelligence on Wednesday. According to a draft document revealed by the AFP news agency, the European Union aims to reduce its reliance on countries like the United States and retake its place in the global race for geo-economic power.
The technological sovereignty package is part of an effort by Brussels to boost local production. The plans include a bill to speed up the rollout of data centre infrastructure and a proposal to secure the microchip supply chain by reducing reliance on foreign suppliers.
Senior EU officials did not explicitly name the US, but European concerns regarding dependence on American cloud providers have existed for some time. US companies currently control around 70 per cent of the European market. The bloc fears that President Donald Trump could shut down critical digital infrastructure if tensions between the EU and the US escalate.
The draft states that governments will be expected to conduct sovereignty risk assessments for cloud services and AI. This is intended to improve resilience and help identify European alternatives. Another document reveals that the European Commission wants the power to intervene during a crisis. This would allow the Commission to force manufacturers to prioritise orders for crisis-critical products, overriding existing contracts. The proposal also introduces joint procurement, enabling the EU to act as a central buyer for member states facing severe shortages.
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