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<\/p>\nUS lobbyists have already cried discrimination<\/p>\n
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The European Commission wants to strengthen the region\u2019s capacity in key areas of tech while cutting reliance on external providers.<\/p>\n
The European Commission has presented the European Technological Sovereignty Package, which aims to boost European performance in semiconductors, AI, cloud and open source.<\/p>\n
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move is about \u201cprotecting our citizens, defending our interests and making our own choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
The package includes two legislative proposals – the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act \u2013 as well as the Open Source Strategy and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy.<\/p>\n
EU prepares to build a semiconductor ecosystem<\/p>\n
The original Chips Act<\/a>, which came into effect in 2023, aimed to develop Europe\u2019s industrial base for producing semiconductors, with the aim of raising the region\u2019s market share from 10% to 20% by 2030.<\/p>\n The Chips Act 2.0 has a similar goal, but specifically aims at \u201cmainstream chips\u201d and \u201ccutting-edge semiconductor technologies that power AI applications.\u201d<\/p>\n The Commission says the new Act will \u201cspeed up permitting, deepen cooperation with like-minded partners and introduce a new excellence label for Europe’s semiconductor regions.\u201d<\/p>\n This is all very high-level at present, but it appears that the EU is preparing to put the work in to build a semiconductor ecosystem.<\/p>\n Sovereignty is a priority in cloud<\/p>\n Cloud is the basis of the modern internet. Nearly every company relies on the cloud, and most use US providers.<\/p>\n The Cloud and AI Development Act<\/a> aims to triple Europe\u2019s datacentre capacity over the next five-to-seven years; support R&D in \u201ccutting-edge and sustainable technologies\u201d; and will introduce a single EU-wide framework to assess cloud and AI sovereignty.<\/p>\n The Act is also intended to support a \u201cmore coordinated approach\u201d to AI uptake across EU Member States.<\/p>\n Part of the current bill is an EU-wide framework for assessing cloud and artificial intelligence sovereignty. The framework includes four assurance levels; countries will be able to choose which levels are needed for which systems, but levels three and four require that the system provider is \u201cnot subject to the control of a third country or a legal entity established in a third country.\u201d<\/p>\n That immediately disqualifies US tech firms, which are all subject to the US Cloud Act. This law allows the US government to request information stored on American servers \u2013 no matter where in the world they are located.<\/p>\n “With the USA, with the Cloud Act, it is difficult for their companies to reach Level 3,” said Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s senior tech policy executive, during a press conference this week. “There are powers in this Cloud Act which are not in line with our rules here.”<\/p>\n Lobbyists for US tech giants, including the Computer and Communications Industry Association, have already accused the EU of discrimination.<\/p>\n Daniel Friedlaender, SVP and head of office at CCIA Europe, said<\/a>, \u201cBy pairing a strict mandate with unrealistic standards that the EU itself cannot meet, the commission is effectively giving national capitals carte blanche to shut out trusted global vendors from every major technology-producing nation outside the Union.\u201d<\/p>\n The irony, at a time when Donald Trump is enacting a range of protectionist trade policies, is apparently lost on Friedlander.<\/p>\n A cyber stumbling block<\/p>\n All four assurance levels in the proposed Act rely heavily on cybersecurity, with levels 2-4 requiring certificates from a European cloud cybersecurity certification scheme. However, that scheme is not yet up and running.<\/p>\n Although the certification scheme has been underway for years, progress has been stalled due to disagreements between member states.<\/p>\n Instead, the new proposal says cloud service providers will require certification from national providers, adding a bureaucracy headache.<\/p>\n EU public sector welcomes open source<\/p>\n The Open Source Strategy is a stance from the European Commission rather than a legislative proposal, but a welcome one for Europe\u2019s three million open source contributors.<\/p>\n The OSS promises to scale up open source alternatives in \u201cpriority areas such as cloud, AI, internet technologies, cybersecurity and semiconductors,\u201d as well as promoting an open source ecosystem with investments in skills, startups and open source infrastructure.<\/p>\n On top of this, the OSS will support public administrations (governments, agencies, etc) to adopt open source \u2013 especially European open source \u2013 through procurement guidelines and best practice recommendations.<\/p>\n Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, told us it had taken \u201cdecades\u201d of work to reach this point.<\/p>\n \u201cThere cannot be digital sovereignty today without open source,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But, she added, the UK \u2013 despite having had an open source policy in place for the public sector since 2011 \u2013 is \u201cway behind\u201d in adoption.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time for us to embrace our leadership in open source to keep up with our neighbours,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n Building infrastructure<\/p>\n