- The EU appears concerned about US technological resilience and continuity amid ongoing tensions
- Data center capacity can triple in five to seven years due to streamlined processes
- Sovereignty wash would also be smoothed out with tighter frames
We are already aware of years of antitrust investigations and strict regulation in the EU, and critics have argued that the Commission has imposed large fines and sanctions on foreign technology suppliers to promote European technological sovereignty.
But now the European Commission has taken this a step further and will now actively finance and promote European technological alternatives.
This comes amid growing geopolitical tensions and fears that the US could limit or suspend European access to critical digital infrastructure sold by US technology suppliers.
The Financial Times reports on a draft European technology sovereignty strategy, which reveals that the EU wants to “regain its place in the global race for geo-economic power.”
According to the proposal, the Cloud and AI Development Act could triple the EU’s data center capacity within the next five to seven years, with a major focus on streamlining site selection processes.
Sovereignty risk assessments could also force bloc member governments and other critical industries to identify and evaluate any hidden dependencies on US software suppliers.
Europe also plans to iron out so-called sovereignty laundering, where Big Tech firms hide behind European subsidiaries, via a four-step framework that assesses: who ultimately controls the corporate entity; the supply chain; AI model data processing; and the location and security of the infrastructure.
According to FTThe Commission is pitching the changes more as “strategic counterbalances that improve Europe’s capacity to remain open to the world without compromising its interests and values,” rather than an exercise in “isolation, protectionism or technological decoupling.”
Earlier in April, CISPE launched its Sovereign and Resilient Cloud Services Framework designed to allow customers to verify a cloud service provider’s sovereignty and resilience.
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