The European Commission unveiled a sweeping plan on June 3, 2026, to reduce Europe's dependence on American and Chinese technology — but the price tag and regulatory burden could undermine the very competitiveness Brussels claims to defend. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe "cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure." The European Technology Sovereignty Package includes two new legislative proposals, the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act, known as CADA, along with an open-source strategy and a roadmap for digitalization in the energy sector.
The measures aren't yet law. They still have to move through the EU policymaking process, where member states will have to decide whether Brussels should be micromanaging cloud-procurement frameworks and data-center permitting — or whether national governments are better placed to make those calls.
The Dependency Problem
Europe's reliance on foreign technology is real. An Oliver Wyman analysis says 92% of Western data is stored on U.S.-owned infrastructure. The European Commission says the EU relies on non-EU countries for more than 80% of its digital products, services, infrastructure and intellectual property, according to data compiled by EU institutions and cited by the European Parliament in its January 2026 resolution on technological sovereignty. AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud account for roughly 70% of the European cloud-infrastructure market, while European providers hold about 15%. In 2017, European cloud providers controlled around 29% of the market. Five years later, their share had fallen to 15%, where it's remained largely stagnant.
The Data Act, which began to apply in September 2025, includes measures designed to make it easier for customers to change providers of data-processing services, including cloud and edge-computing services. The regulation seeks to improve interoperability and portability while reducing the technical and financial barriers that make leaving a platform difficult. In June 2026, the European Commission informed Amazon and Microsoft of its preliminary view that AWS and Azure should be designated as "gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act. Brussels says the two companies are the EU's leading cloud providers, with entrenched market positions, high switching costs and strong lock-in effects.
What the Package Contains
CADA aims to at least triple the European Union's data-center capacity over the next five to seven years, speed up and simplify permitting procedures for new facilities, improve access to energy, land, water and financing, and ensure sufficient computing capacity to support the expansion of artificial intelligence and cloud services. It also introduces a common European framework for assessing cloud and AI sovereignty and would allow public authorities to use that framework when making procurement decisions.
The proposed framework sets out four levels of sovereignty. The first requires that data be processed and stored on infrastructure located in the EU. The second adds independence from third countries and transparency regarding the software supply chain. The third requires that the provider be owned and controlled from within the EU. The fourth, and highest, level demands full transparency and control over the software supply chain, as well as freedom from interference by third countries.
Sebastián Muriel, Telefónica's chief digital officer, has argued that "believing sovereignty consists merely of hosting data on European soil is clearly insufficient." In an article published in the business daily Cinco Días on May 23, titled Europe, Wake Up: Digital Sovereignty Cannot Be Built by Signing Lease Agreements, he wrote: "It makes no difference whether the server is in Madrid, Frankfurt or Dublin if the parent company is in Redmond or Mountain View." He also said: "We are encouraging a situation in which sovereignty becomes little more than a label stuck on a rental contract."
The package also targets semiconductors. The Chips Act 2.0 starts from the premise that Europe accounts for just under 10% of global semiconductor production, according to a Polytechnique Insights analysis of the European semiconductor industry. The proposal aims to strengthen European capabilities, develop cutting-edge technologies, increase the resilience of the supply chain and stimulate domestic demand for chips produced in Europe.
Open-source software is another pillar. The Commission intends to strengthen open alternatives across technology layers and promote their use in public administrations. The reasoning is that the more a government depends on proprietary software controlled by an external provider, the greater its technological dependence.
The Energy and Investment Crunch
Energy is the fourth piece. The Commission says it cannot support a massive expansion of data centers without addressing where the electricity to power them will come from. Its roadmap for digitalization and AI in the energy sector seeks to integrate data centers into Europe's energy system and coordinate the growth of computing capacity with electricity availability and decarbonization goals.
The shortage of skilled workers is another bottleneck. Sixty percent of EU companies report difficulties hiring qualified workers in fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and clean technologies, according to the European Parliament. Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of the Commission responsible for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, said: "We are living through a global digital revolution and a worldwide race to shape the future of artificial intelligence. Europe must not be content to participate in this transformation; it must lead it."
Europe's investment effort still lags behind its main rivals. The European Union spent €381.4 billion on research and development, equivalent to 2.22% of GDP, according to the European Commission's State of the Digital Decade 2025 report. The Commission says that level of investment is 34% lower than the combined investment of the United States and China. Mario Draghi has said only four of the world's 50 largest technology companies are European, and PwC's Global Top 100 Companies 2026 report says not a single European company ranks among the world's 10 largest technology firms by market capitalization.
The AI gap is also wide. In July 2026, the highest-ranked European AI model stood in 89th place in Artificial Analysis's rankings, and every model above it came from either the United States or China. Draghi said a year after his report on European competitiveness: "Inaction threatens not only our competitiveness, but also our sovereignty." He also noted that nearly 30% of the unicorns created in Europe had subsequently moved their headquarters abroad.
The Fiscal Reality
Public procurement is part of the response. In April, the European Commission awarded contracts worth up to €180 million for sovereign cloud services for EU institutions. The move cannot match the scale of investment made by U.S. hyperscalers, but Brussels says it can help turn the public sector into an anchor customer for European providers.
The issue extends beyond cloud computing and data centers. A GSMA Intelligence study published in May 2026 says Europe will need €475 billion in investment in mobile networks by 2035 to complete its 5G rollout and regain digital leadership. Under current conditions, European operators are expected to mobilize only about €270 billion, leaving an investment gap of €205 billion.
Barbara Moens, in a Financial Times article published in late May, described Europe's move away from a strategy mainly focused on regulating large technology companies toward one aimed at fostering European alternatives in semiconductors, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. She said Europe must "reclaim its place in the global race for geoeconomic power."
Why This Matters:
The Commission is right that Europe's technological dependence is a strategic vulnerability. But the package raises hard questions about whether Brussels should be setting procurement frameworks and permitting rules for data centers — or whether those decisions belong with national governments and the private sector. Europe's real problem isn't a lack of regulation. It's a lack of investment, a shortage of skilled workers, and an exodus of successful companies to the United States. Tripling data-center capacity and building European cloud alternatives will require hundreds of billions in private capital, stable energy supply, and a regulatory environment that rewards innovation rather than punishing scale. The Commission has awarded €180 million in sovereign cloud contracts. The investment gap in mobile networks alone is €205 billion. That gap won't be closed by more legislation from Brussels.