Synopsis
Europe wants more homegrown tech to cut its dependencies on the United States and China, but the EU warned Wednesday the bloc has more work to do. But to achieve this objective, the EU must bring electricity costs down relative to the United States and China where energy prices are lower.Listen to this article in summarized format
The European Union worries it is vulnerable to the whims of foreign governments, a concern underlined last week when Anthropic suspended access to two powerful AI models to comply with a US national security order.
To tackle this exposure, the EU this month unveiled its long-awaited "tech sovereignty" package including new rules on chips, cloud computing and AI.
"This marks a pivotal moment and one we have to fully grasp to strengthen Europe's autonomy and resilience," EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.
In an annual report assessing how Europe is progressing towards its 2030 digital targets, the European Commission listed where gaps remain including in the semiconductors sector as well as cloud computing.
The bloc accounts for only nine percent of the global chips market -- nowhere near the 20 percent target for 2030. Meanwhile, the EU accounts for 20 percent of global data centre capacity, the report said.
The package announced this month aims to triple data centre capacity in Europe in the next 5 to 7 years by making it easier to build them.
But to achieve this objective, the EU must bring electricity costs down relative to the United States and China where energy prices are lower.
The high costs "constitute a structural barrier to data centre investment" that the new rules "alone cannot address," the report said.
The commission also warned "Europe remains structurally dependent" on non-EU cybersecurity suppliers with European companies lagging behind global rivals.
The sovereignty push is backed by Europeans according to a survey of around 26,500 people between February and March this year which found 82 percent of respondents want "reduced dependency on third-country technology".
