en.Wedoany.com Reported - The European Commission recently introduced a comprehensive Tech Sovereignty Package, covering four major areas: chips, cloud and artificial intelligence, open-source ecosystems, and energy digitalization. The package aims to alleviate the EU's structural dependence on key digital technologies. A preliminary analysis by the Center for European Policy Studies (Cep) suggests this is the EU's most coordinated effort to date to address technological dependency, but risks remain—the key lies in how Europe defines and implements its sovereignty, rather than choosing between closure and openness.

The package is set against a stark data reality: according to the Draghi Report, the EU remains dependent on non-European suppliers for over 80% of its digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property. This vulnerability carries both industrial and geopolitical dimensions—artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, public data management, and digitalized energy networks all rely on components and platforms controlled from outside the bloc. To address this, Brussels is advancing interventions on multiple fronts simultaneously: revising the Chips Act to boost advanced semiconductor production; enacting the Cloud and AI Development Act (Cada) covering cloud and AI infrastructure; revitalizing open-source through a digital ecosystem strategy; and tackling data center bottlenecks with an energy roadmap. The European Commission believes that relying solely on research funding or setting general principles is no longer sufficient to meet current challenges; it must also stimulate demand, build infrastructure, maintain software, and secure electricity supply.

The revised Chips Act shifts focus from research to commercialization. Compared to the 2023 version, which emphasized pilot lines and coordination structures, the new plan proposes building Europe's first open foundry for sub-3nm process nodes, with pilot production scheduled between 2030 and 2033. The package also introduces Demand Accelerators, binding producers and buyers through pre-purchase agreements. Cep semiconductor expert Matthias Kullas notes that given the current geopolitical situation, Europe must enhance self-sufficiency in chip production, and a focus on demand can send credible signals to investors. However, supply-side weaknesses such as high construction costs, lengthy approval cycles, and skills shortages remain challenges.

The Cada Act focuses on sovereignty building in the cloud and AI sectors, requiring member states to assess public systems dependent on foreign cloud services and classify them according to sovereignty levels. The act aims to triple European data center capacity within five to seven years, requiring an investment of approximately €200 billion, mostly from the private sector. Cada proposes four cloud sovereignty levels, with criteria covering service and supply chain control, AI inference data processing location, infrastructure location, and cybersecurity levels. Cep IT sector economist Philipp Eckhardt believes this assessment framework can help public administrations better identify risk exposure, but the risk is that if analysis results evolve into general procurement preferences, it could lead to higher costs and reduced competition. Eckhardt cites the example of the European Cybersecurity Certification Scheme for Cloud Services (Eucs), which stalled for years due to political controversies such as data localization being embedded into technical mechanisms. He emphasizes that Cada must distinguish between truly sensitive systems and the majority of cloud use cases: strict sovereignty requirements can apply to the former, while the latter should prioritize competitiveness, portability, and price.

The Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy positions open source as a strategic lever for technological sovereignty. The EU has funded open initiatives in several areas, such as the openEuroLlm project and the European Digital Identity Wallet, but has lacked a coherent maintenance model. The European Commission plans to establish an Open-Source Maintenance Instrument to provide long-term financial support, create a European Digital Public Infrastructure Foundation to manage code repositories, and implement a "open by default" principle in public R&D tenders. Cep digital expert Anselm Küsters argues that sovereignty is a prerequisite for openness, not its opposite—if Europe cannot independently build and maintain at least some critical digital infrastructure, it will lose the ability to negotiate with suppliers and geopolitical rivals. However, Cep also notes the limitations of funding scale: the Commission estimates a total of approximately €2 billion in public and private funds over seven years, which is very limited compared to the €264 billion annual proprietary IT spending. Therefore, funding should be explicitly tied to maintenance obligations, not just project initiation.

The Energy Roadmap addresses the pressure from rapid data center growth. By 2030, the EU's data center electricity demand is expected to more than triple, with installed capacity rising from about 10 GW to about 35 GW, potentially placing a heavy burden on power grids and regional energy planning. The roadmap outlines three pathways: integrating data centers into national grid planning through agreements between operators, public authorities, and energy entities; using AI in energy systems to optimize grids and improve demand-side flexibility; and introducing a data center efficiency rating scheme that considers energy efficiency, water consumption, renewable energy use, and waste heat reuse. Analysis suggests that without effective management of energy growth, technological sovereignty may encounter physical bottlenecks before industrial constraints; the close link between digital and industrial policy is evident here: AI needs cloud, cloud needs chips, chips need factories, and factories and data centers need energy—each link constrains the others.

Cep offers sensitive recommendations on public procurement. The package can use public demand as an industrial lever, but requires careful execution: in the cloud sector, procurement as a sovereignty tool should be limited to clearly defined security areas, with special requirements determined by legislators rather than delegated to implementing acts or certification systems; in the chip sector, public demand can support investment in new factories, with AI Gigafactories and Data Centre Acceleration Zones potentially serving as reference customers, provided procurement rules effectively strengthen demand. Cep sets clear conditions: procurement preferences can only consolidate the industrial case for new European factories if European-origin hardware is competitively in terms of quality; otherwise, investments will remain fragile.

The core message from Cep's analysis is that technological sovereignty does not mean decoupling. The European Commission's strategic statement emphasizes that this does not imply isolation, protectionism, or technological closure. In a strong sense, sovereignty means the ability to act freely—choosing between suppliers, switching platforms at not excessively high costs, and placing sensitive workloads under appropriate jurisdictions when necessary. Automatically excluding foreign suppliers from public tenders is not the intention; the goal is to enable Europe to negotiate from a position of lower dependency. The challenge lies in preventing sovereignty from becoming a byword for long-term protectionism. European industrial history shows that barriers and preferences can foster protected rather than competitive industries, with higher risks in fast-evolving technology sectors. The quality of rule-making will be decisive, requiring clear legal basis, impact assessments, parliamentary oversight, and proportionate standards. Technological sovereignty cannot be built by transferring political choices to technical bodies without a mandate.

This article is compiled by Wedoany. All AI citations must indicate the source as "Wedoany". If there is any infringement or other issues, please notify us promptly, and we will modify or delete it accordingly. Email: news@wedoany.com