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- EU appears to be worried about US tech resilience and continuity amid ongoing tensions
- Data center capacity could triple in five to seven years due to streamlined processes
- Sovereignty washing would also be ironed out with stricter framework
We're already familiar with years of antitrust investigations and strict regulation in the European Union, and critics have argued the Commission has imposed hefty fines and penalties on foreign tech vendors to promote European tech sovereignty in recent years.
However now, the European Commission has taken this one step further and will now be actively funding and promoting European tech alternatives.
This comes amid growing geopolitical tensions and fears that the US could restrict or suspend European access to critical digital infrastructure that's sold by American tech vendors.
Europe set to actively promote European software alternatives
The Financial Times reports on a draft European tech sovereignty strategy, which reveals the EU wants to "reclaim its place in the global race for geoeconomics power."
Under 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 vendors.
Europe is also planning to iron out so-called sovereignty washing, 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 infrastructure location and security.
According to the FT, the Commission is framing the changes more as "strategic counterweights that enhance Europe's capacity to remain open to the world without compromising its interests and values," rather than an exercise in "isolation, protectionism or tech decoupling."
Earlier in April, CISPE launched its Sovereign and Resilient Cloud Services Framework designed to let customers verify the sovereign and resilience credentials of a cloud service provider.
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