European policymakers worry that the bloc depends too heavily on America's tech giants for cloud and AI services. Germany's federal government pays almost €500m a year in licence fees to Microsoft. Large French companies buy more than $50bn in software and cloud services annually from American tech giants. Euro-zone imports of intellectual-property services from America have ballooned to $200bn a year and counting. America's four biggest cloud and AI firms—Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft—are miles ahead of Europe. Germany's flagship €1bn data centre near Munich is dwarfed by America's big four, which invested more than 350 times that in 2025 alone. Of almost 100 notable AI models released in the past year, according to Epoch AI, only one came from the EU.
On June 3rd 2026 the EU is to unveil a tech-sovereignty package, including a cloud and AI development act, with faster permitting, some public funds and procurement rules that prioritise European suppliers. In April 2026 France announced it was switching all government computers from Windows to Linux. Germany is likely to task domestic firms with setting up a cloud for administrative data; its domestic intelligence service has opted for ArgonOS, a French data-analytics firm, over America's Palantir. In 2022 most firms surveyed by Accenture only considered American cloud providers; that share dropped to less than 20% in 2025.
Three big worries underpin the drive. First, sensitive data may not be safe: America's Cloud Act gives Washington the power to request data from tech firms even when hosted by subsidiaries abroad. Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, lost access to his email after being placed under sanctions by America. Hyperscalers respond with "sovereign offerings": Microsoft promises European users it will never cut them off and will fight American data requests in court; Google has an "air-gapped" cloud with no connection to the public internet whose newest customers include the German armed forces. Critics call these "sovereign-washing".
Second, that American digital services spread harmful content and dominate markets. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) allow punishment for anti-competitive behaviour. In April 2026 the European Commission sent preliminary warnings to Meta (breaching age restrictions) and to Google (demanding it grant third parties access to search data). Other investigations probe whether Google's and Microsoft's cloud services are governed by the DMA—if so they could be forced to unbundle.
Third, growth: Europe is losing the technological race to America and China. Mario Draghi has argued the EU must become more assertive, but "what is holding us back is security." ASML, the Dutch chip-equipment leader, sells only 1% of its machines in Europe.
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