Spring garden tours take place on the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks)

The Open Internet Was Always American. Now It's a Weapon.

Police stand behind their shields as they prepare to clash with protesters outside the Delaney Hall detention center during a protest against the transfer of detainees and federal immigration policies on Saturday, May 30, 2026, in Newark, N.J. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

As Detainees Strike Across the US, Tech Helps Trump Hunt ICE Watchers

Series: What Europe’s AI Market Actually Looks Like

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The AI Economy Is Coming to HBCUs. Are They Ready for the Tradeoffs?

Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy of the European Commission, at a press conference in Brussels on June 3, 2026. Source: LinkedIn

Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy of the European Commission, at a press conference in Brussels on June 3, 2026. 

EU Unveils Sweeping Tech Sovereignty Push, Balancing Autonomy with Openness

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, right, and European Commissioner for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen speak during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)

How the EU’s Tech Sovereignty Package Finally Puts Open Source to the Test

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The Environmental Impact of Data Centers in Vulnerable Ecosystems by Gloria Mendoza / 

Environmental Lawsuits Present Roadblock for the AI Data Center Boom

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Why the AI Policy Debate Should Focus More on the Harness and Protocol Layers

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President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the White House AI Summit at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (

Trump Signs Previously Shelved AI Executive Order

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The AI ‘Revolution' is Not a People's Revolution

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The Spillover Effects of EU’s Digital Deregulation Agenda

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Rethinking Norm-Setting in Africa’s Digital Present

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The State of Data Center Policy in the United States

Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy of the European Commission. 

EU to Roll Out Tech Sovereignty Agenda to Rival US and China. Will it Work?

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How to Rebuild US Science and Technology Policy From the Rubble of Trump 2.0

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An air defense unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, known as drone hunters, illuminates the sky with a powerful searchlight at night at a position in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, March 24, 2024. 

What Middle Powers Risk When AI Goes to War

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May 2026 US Tech Policy Roundup

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Newsletter: The Pope, the cloud, and your data after you die

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Why the EU's Data Center Boom Is a Black Box

Springtime in Brussels. Photo: Justin Hendrix/Tech Policy Pres

Taking the Temperature of Tech Policy Debates in Brussels at CPDP

This three-part series is published in partnership with the AI Now Institute.

Europe, Spring 2026. Germany’s AI translation darling DeepL 

 with Amazon Web Services. French Mistral 

 their models in partnership with Nvidia. Swedish Lovable 

 a jump scare as Anthropic moves in to eat its lunch. Meanwhile, across Europe, companies who submitted bids to build the continent's ‘Gigafactories’ — large-scale computing infrastructure designed to help Europe train the latest generation of frontier AI models — are 

For sovereignty-minded EU politicians, this landscape might cause distress. Massive amounts of political energy are being spent to break free from US Big Tech: by deregulating, providing capital, aspiring to build sovereign computing clusters, and nurturing ambitious tech startups. Yet, the initiatives keep being frustrated by the gravity wells of the global tech market that bend the interests of private actors in their direction.

 the growing political effort to build "Sovereign AI” in Europe. A key theme throughout this work has been that Europe’s AI industrial policy rests on an implicit, largely unexamined assumption: that European AI companies, their funders, and their market incentives are naturally aligned with European strategic interests. Simply put, the more European AI companies there are, the better for Europe.

The reality is much messier. What looks like a European AI ecosystem is a confluence of interests pulling in different directions: VC timelines that reward fast exits over long-term independence, market structures that funnel revenue upstream to US providers, infrastructure dependencies that deepen with every investment, and playbooks borrowed wholesale from Silicon Valley.

The policy problem runs even deeper. This week, the European Commission presented the 

European Technological Sovereignty Package

, a set of measures to strengthen Europe's capacity in semiconductors, AI, cloud and open source. This is more than a framing exercise. With the proposed 

, the package contains two concrete legislative proposals that are deeply revealing about the unspoken assumptions that drive Europe’s strategy on AI: about where value is created and captured in AI supply chains, about AI's future trajectory, and about whether sovereignty can be achieved without engaging in market shaping.

Simply put, Europe’s strategy on AI has focussed on two sides of the market: boosting demand (via initiatives like the Apply AI Strategy, aimed at pushing AI adoption), and — primarily — increasing supply of inputs (via the Cloud and AI Development Act, expanding on compute and data center capacity and the proposed Cloud Act 2.0, aimed at increasing Europe’s chips supply). What was initially framed under the umbrella of competitiveness, now includes added measures aimed at ensuring “sovereignty,” with the laudable goal of progressing towards a full European technology stack.

As we will argue throughout this series, these industrial policy proposals rest on an incomplete, two-dimensional view of the European AI market. In reality, this market is 

 with the ecosystems of dominant US players, in ways that boosting both supply and demand alone cannot disentangle. As a result, interventions that seek to secure sovereignty in AI risk leading to much more entrenched dependence.

Most EU tech policy commentary operates top-down: it starts from strategy documents and asks whether targets are being met. This series works bottom-up. It looks at what the European AI market actually looks like (who supplies whom, where revenue flows, what dependencies are baked in) and tests the assumptions that policy documents leave implicit. Where evidence is incomplete or trajectories genuinely uncertain, we will say so openly rather than defaulting to confident prescriptions.

This mini-series consists of three parts: The first piece will examine Europe's AI application layer; how startups like Lovable function as a distribution channel for US models, and what that means for the value Europe actually captures. The second will trace why even Europe's strongest independent AI companies, like DeepL, end up dependent on US hyperscaler infrastructure. The third will pull the threads together: the common structural dynamic, the strategic choices Europe is avoiding, and the honest uncertainties about where AI is heading. These pieces will be published over the coming weeks in Tech Policy Press and on 

the EU AI Industrial Policy Monitor Newsletter

The obvious risk is that the widespread adoption of AI further entrenches Europe’s dependence on a handful of US firms. The less obvious risk — and the one this series examines — is that even where Europe builds its own AI capabilities, the economic value still flows elsewhere. Whether and how much to build is itself a political question this series doesn't presume to answer. But whatever Europe decides, an AI industrial policy strategy that cannot decipher its priors — particularly around where and how it will complete — will not be successful. It is a wish list that avoids the scrutiny that comes from clearly naming tradeoffs and hard choices.


Late last week, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) 

 to Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) demanding identifying information about users who have criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement activities—and directing Reddit and X to send the requested information directly to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

These subpoenas are the latest in a persistent campaign by the Trump administration to 

 opposition to and reporting on immigration raids and the federal agents involved, including crowdsourcing and sharing that information online.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people in at least five ICE detention facilities 

 have launched hunger and labor strikes in recent weeks to protest 

 ranging from spoiled food to medical neglect. Outside Delaney Hall, a detention center in Newark, New Jersey, protestors and journalists have been 

 federal agents and state police as community members gather in solidarity with those still on strike inside.

The strikes and related demonstrations are an urgent reminder that the Trump administration continues to target ICE watch efforts for one clear reason: impunity thrives without witnesses.

A fishing expedition enabled by tech companies

The Trump administration’s subpoena campaign to unmask the operators of accounts critical of—or simply reporting on—ICE activities has been ongoing for months.

In early September, roughly three months into escalating DHS operations in Los Angeles, the agency 

 an administrative subpoena to Meta demanding information about multiple users, including the operators of the Instagram account for StopICE.net.

 “hundreds of administrative subpoenas” not only to Meta, but also to Google, Reddit, and Discord demanding identifying information about users behind accounts monitoring ICE activities.

For the most part, these subpoenas have been administrative—meaning companies have no legal obligation to supply the information requested. Still, in many cases targeting individual users, it has been the users themselves who have blocked the release of their personal information by 

Leading tech companies, on the other hand, have openly complied with requests from Trump administration officials to crack down on community ICE watching efforts. In October, at the height of DHS’s chaotic “Midway Blitz” operation in Chicago, Google and Apple removed multiple apps designed to crowdsource community reports about ICE raids from their respective app stores 

 the developer of one targeted app, ICEBlock, that his app violated App Store policies by providing information that might be used to “harm [law enforcement] officers individually or as a group.”

Three days later, on the south side of Chicago, community observer Marimar Martinez was 

 five times by a Border Patrol agent she was filming from her car.

 blocking the federal government from coercing Apple to continue blocking another targeted ICE watch app—Eyes Up—on the grounds that it was violating the app creator’s First Amendment rights. Apple has not relisted either app.

DOJ enters the social media subpoena fray

 sent to Reddit and X are reportedly grand jury subpoenas issued by the US Attorney’s Office for Washington, D.C.—currently led by former FOX News personality Jeanine Pirro.

Attorneys for those targeted by the Reddit and X subpoenas say there is 

 as to what the underlying charges might be.

Under Pirro’s leadership, the office has 

 to convince grand juries to sign off on criminal charges—including the multiple grand juries who refused to indict a man who threw a footlong Subway sub at federal agents during the Trump administration’s federal surge in Washington D.C. last summer while 

 “SHAME!” and calling the agents “racists” and “fascists.” Though Pirro’s office eventually secured an indictment, the government then 

In February, Pirro’s office also tried and 

 to secure a grand jury indictment against multiple Democratic members of Congress—including Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five former military and intelligence officers—who 

 to active-duty military and intelligence officers reminding them that they have the legal right and obligation to refuse illegal orders.

While doggedly pursuing its theory that observing, recording, and criticizing federal agents’ taxpayer-funded activities is a criminal enterprise, the Trump administration continues to 

 the web of sophisticated, invasive surveillance tools at those same agents’ disposal.

 facial recognition apps like MobileFortify from their phones; ICE has 

 access to an “unprecedented” amount of the public’s personal data from other agencies, including the IRS; ICE and Border Patrol are 

 the growing network of automated license plate readers like Flock now blanketing many US cities and towns; and DHS has 

 with surveillance tech companies like Penlink in order to buy mobile phone location data without a warrant.

 about taunting community members—and ICE watch volunteers in particular—with evidence that their activities are being tracked and their personal information is accessible by individual ICE and Border Patrol agents. Lawsuits have been 

 by citizens in Maine and Minnesota describing federal agents “show[ing] up outside the homes of ICE observers” and placing intimidating phone calls alleging that ICE watch volunteers “might get added to a domestic terrorism watchlist” if they continue their work.

While there is no public evidence that any “domestic terrorism watchlist” exists, Trump has 

 efforts to publicize “identifying information” about ICE agents as “violent and terroristic activities.”

Top administration officials have also repeatedly made claims that victims of ICE and Border Patrol violence were actually engaged in acts of “domestic terrorism”—

 two community observers shot and killed by federal agents in Minnesota, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, 

Outside of Delaney Hall, protests in solidarity with striking detainees entered their second week with a curfew in effect for a half-mile radius around the facility.

 demonstrators from gathering close enough to the facility that people trapped inside could hear those gathered outside in support. Dozens of protesters and journalists have been 

 federal agents deliberately targeting them and their cameras.

Local elected officials have repeatedly been denied entry to the facility; Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), who represents the district where Delaney Hall is located, 

 federal charges for her efforts to gain access to conduct routine oversight last year. Those who have recently been allowed to visit include House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who 

 that what he saw and discussed with detainees “shocked the conscience.”

Delaney Hall is operated by GEO Group, the largest private prison operator in the US. In recent years, the company has also “built a lucrative side business” focused on 

, from phone apps to smart watches, specifically to cash in on immigration enforcement.

GEO Group is no stranger to allegations of abuse and mistreatment; people held in their detention centers have 

 gone on hunger strikes to protest inhumane conditions. The company has faced multiple lawsuits over forcing immigrant detainees to work for just $1 per day, and 

 the allegations made by striking detainees at GEO-owned detention centers 

 that hunger strikes are underway at all.

Despite restricted access for elected officials, attorneys, and families, those trapped inside Delaney Hall 

 is one that broke through. Soto’s wife Gabriela spoke to demonstrators outside Delaney Hall to 

 her husband’s account of conditions inside the facility, where he’d been held for five months. He has since been 

 and reportedly placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for his suspected involvement with the ongoing hunger and labor strike.

In detention centers, in the streets, and on social media, the Trump administration is waging an aggressive campaign against those exposing its worst abuses.

But the message from those still risking retaliation in Delaney Hall and other detention facilities across the country is clear: the costs of looking away are higher than the costs of speaking out.

In 1956, the Suez Crisis taught much of the world a lasting 

: infrastructure controlled by others is never entirely neutral. The canal was built to facilitate global commerce and interdependence, yet when political tensions escalated, it instantly became an instrument of leverage, coercion, and strategic vulnerability. States that once viewed interconnected systems as mutually beneficial suddenly confronted a harsher reality that openness depended not only on access, but on trust in whoever ultimately controlled the system.

The Internet is now approaching a similar moment.

For most of the Internet’s history, the United States presented itself not as a sovereign power over the network, but as its reluctant steward. Washington’s language was consistently framed around openness, interoperability, innovation, and freedom. The Internet was portrayed as a borderless domain that flourished precisely because governments, particularly authoritarian ones, were restrained from imposing territorial logic onto digital space. American policymakers, technology companies, civil society groups, and academics all reinforced the same narrative: the Internet’s success depended on keeping the state at arm’s length.

Yet this story was always only partially true.

Beneath the rhetoric of openness existed a deeper and largely unspoken reality: the global Internet was structurally embedded within American power. Its technical architecture, governance institutions, cloud infrastructure, semiconductor supply chains, undersea cable ecosystems, and dominant digital platforms were overwhelmingly American or heavily exposed to US jurisdiction. The Internet was “global,” but its center of gravity rested firmly in the US. What made this arrangement tolerable for much of the world was not the absence of sovereignty, but the relative restraint with which American power was exercised.

In this sense, Washington’s soft power rested on a form of hidden sovereignty. The US possessed extraordinary structural leverage over the digital ecosystem, but for decades it generally refrained from weaponizing that dominance in overtly coercive ways against allies and partners. This distinction mattered enormously. Countries accepted an American-centered Internet not because they were naïve about US influence, but because the benefits of participation outweighed the perceived risks of dependence. The network remained sufficiently open, predictable, and commercially attractive to sustain trust in the system.

Today, however, that equilibrium is breaking down and the rhetorical separation between American private enterprise and state power seems to have completely dissolved. This modern alignment was vividly manifested during President Donald Trump’s recent diplomatic trip to Beijing, where he was accompanied by an extraordinary 

 of Big Tech CEOs, including the leaders of Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia. By embedding the architects of global AI infrastructure, semiconductor supply chains, and digital platforms directly into a state delegation, Washington has made the underlying reality undeniable: the US is now explicitly using its technological dominance as a formal, coercive arm of its foreign policy and a primary lever for geopolitical bargaining.

The debate around digital sovereignty has intensified dramatically over the past decade, and especially in recent years. What began as a primarily European discussion around data protection and platform regulation has evolved into a far broader geopolitical movement. States across the world are now seeking greater control over data flows, cloud infrastructure, AI systems, semiconductor supply chains, and digital public infrastructure. China 

 one model through cyber sovereignty and state-centered Internet governance. 

 pursued another approach through strategic autonomy, digital regulation, and industrial policy, and its long-awaited tech sovereignty 

, and others have advanced their own sovereignty-oriented approaches through data localization, platform rules, and digital industrial strategies.

For years, American policymakers largely interpreted these developments as protectionist overreactions or authoritarian deviations from the open Internet model. Digital sovereignty was often framed in Washington as synonymous with fragmentation and a threat to innovation, trade, and the global interoperability of the Internet itself. But the irony is increasingly difficult to ignore: the US itself has long practiced digital sovereignty, only using different language and with greater sophistication.

American control over key chokepoints of the digital economy, including cloud services, operating systems, app stores, semiconductors, financial infrastructure, and Internet governance institutions, is what has enabled Washington to shape global technological outcomes in ways few other states could replicate. Export controls, sanctions regimes, surveillance authorities, jurisdictional reach over American companies, and dominance over standards-setting processes all reflected sovereign power exercised through network centrality rather than explicit territorial regulation.

 in 2013 marked an important turning point because they exposed the depth of US intelligence access to global digital infrastructure. For many countries, the disclosures shattered the assumption that the American-centered Internet was politically neutral. They demonstrated that openness did not necessarily mean the absence of state power; rather, it often masked asymmetrical dependence on American legal and intelligence systems.

Still, even after Snowden, many allies remained committed to preserving the broader architecture of the open Internet because they believed the US ultimately remained invested in maintaining a stable and rules-based digital order. The concern was not simply American power itself, but whether that power would continue to be exercised predictably.

This is where the contemporary moment becomes especially significant.

Under the second Trump administration, the language of sovereignty has become much more 

 in American technology policy. The shift is not merely rhetorical. It reflects a growing willingness to openly treat digital infrastructure, AI systems, semiconductors, and data governance as instruments of geopolitical leverage and national power.

Recent policy developments illustrate this transformation clearly. The administration has framed artificial intelligence as a strategic domain in which the US must preserve “

” and ensure that American governance models are adopted globally. New executive actions 

 of full-stack American AI ecosystems, including chips, cloud infrastructure, data systems, cybersecurity frameworks, and governance standards, explicitly as tools of geopolitical influence.

 export controls on advanced semiconductors and AI technologies, using access to computational power as a strategic lever against rivals, particularly China. The administration has also 

 stricter monitoring of where advanced chips are deployed globally, reinforcing the idea that American technology remains subject to continuing US sovereign oversight even after export. Equally revealing is the administration’s increasingly confrontational position toward foreign digital regulation. Washington has openly opposed data sovereignty initiatives abroad, 

 diplomats to challenge localization rules and privacy regulations perceived as constraints on American technology firms. The logic here is unmistakably sovereign: preserving US influence over global digital markets while resisting foreign efforts to territorialize data governance in ways that weaken American control.

What is striking is not simply that the US is behaving strategically—major powers always do—but that the traditional distinction between the “open Internet” and sovereign control is collapsing. The US is no longer merely defending openness as a universal principle; it is increasingly defending an American-centered technological order as a national strategic interest.

This shift has profound consequences for allies.

Europe’s accelerating push for digital sovereignty cannot be understood solely as anti-Americanism or protectionism. Rather, it reflects growing uncertainty about the long-term reliability of dependence on US-controlled infrastructure. The concern is not only what Washington has done historically, but what it might do in the future under increasingly unilateral political conditions. This is the essence of anticipatory sovereignty. Countries are no longer decoupling or localizing solely in response to past coercion but they are restructuring digital dependencies because they can no longer fully discount the possibility of future volatility. Even democratic allies increasingly perceive technological dependence as a strategic vulnerability if critical infrastructure remains exposed to abrupt policy shifts, sanctions, intelligence demands, export controls, or geopolitical bargaining. The irony is that fragmentation is emerging not because American power disappeared, but because it became too central to ignore.

In earlier decades, the US benefited from a kind of infrastructural legitimacy. Its dominance was accepted because the system appeared relatively stable, rules-based, and mutually beneficial. Yet legitimacy in networked systems depends heavily on trust. Once states begin to fear that dependence could become coercive under shifting political circumstances, they naturally seek insulation mechanisms. This helps explain why digital sovereignty has become such a powerful political idea across vastly different political systems. While the motivations vary from one country to another, the underlying impulse remains remarkably similar: reducing asymmetric dependence within a technologically hierarchical system in an era of declining trust. Artificial intelligence is now accelerating this trend dramatically.

 than the early Internet economy. Advanced compute infrastructure, frontier models, chip design, and cloud capacity are concentrated in a handful of firms and countries, overwhelmingly American. As AI becomes foundational to economic productivity, military capability, scientific research, and state administration, dependence on foreign AI infrastructure increasingly resembles dependence on critical national infrastructure itself.

This is why debates around “sovereign AI” are emerging so rapidly. Governments now seek not only data sovereignty, but also sovereign compute, sovereign cloud systems, domestic AI models, and independent digital infrastructure stacks. The fear is straightforward: countries that lack control over computational infrastructure may eventually lose meaningful autonomy over economic and political decision-making.

Ironically, the US simultaneously encourages and resists this logic. Washington promotes “AI sovereignty” for partners when it means adopting American AI ecosystems rather than Chinese ones. Yet it opposes sovereignty measures that would weaken American technological dominance through localization or regulatory constraints. This tension reveals the core contradiction of the current moment: every major power now speaks the language of sovereignty, but each defines it in ways compatible with its own structural position. The broader consequence may be the gradual transformation of the Internet itself.

For decades, globalization encouraged the assumption that digital interdependence would naturally deepen integration and reduce geopolitical fragmentation. Instead, interdependence has increasingly become securitized. States now view technological dependence not simply as economic exposure, but as strategic vulnerability. Connectivity is no longer automatically associated with stability; it is equally associated with leverage and coercion.

As a result, the Internet is entering a new phase in which openness survives selectively and conditionally rather than universally. Cross-border interoperability will continue, but increasingly through politically negotiated arrangements rather than purely market-driven integration. Digital infrastructure is becoming embedded within alliance structures, industrial policy, export control regimes, and national security strategies.

This does not necessarily mean a complete “splinternet.” The global network will not disappear into entirely isolated national Internets. The economic incentives for connectivity remain too powerful. But the assumption that digital systems can remain detached from geopolitical competition is becoming untenable.

The central lesson of the digital sovereignty debate is therefore not that sovereignty has suddenly returned to the Internet. Sovereignty was always there. The difference is that it was once softened by trust, institutional restraint, and the perception that American leadership broadly aligned with systemic stability. Today, that trust is eroding. And when trust dissolves in networked systems, states do what states have always done: they seek insulation, redundancy, and control. Digital sovereignty, in that sense, is not merely ideological fragmentation. It is geopolitical insurance against uncertainty in an era where technological infrastructure has become inseparable from national power.

After multiple delays, the European Commission on Wednesday unveiled what it calls its first comprehensive strategy to curb Europe’s reliance on foreign cloud services, semiconductors and software — a sweeping package spanning the full technology stack from chips to cloud to AI.

 marks the bloc’s most ambitious attempt yet to reduce dependence on non-European providers. It includes plans to bar cloud companies that fail to meet new EU sovereignty criteria from sensitive government contracts and would grant Brussels emergency powers to prioritize chip production during supply crises, including the ability to override existing commercial agreements.

Ironically, the move comes two days after the EU 

, a US-led initiative coordinating semiconductor export controls targeting China.

“We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “This is about protecting our citizens, defending our interests and making our own choices.”

The Commission frames “tech sovereignty” as Europe’s capacity to “develop, control and scale” critical technologies, infrastructure, services and data, while reducing strategic dependencies and exposure to foreign interference. The language reflects growing concern in Brussels over the weaponization of supply chains and the use of sanctions and restrictive measures — though the US is not explicitly named.

The package formalizes a shift already underway across EU institutions and member states. The European Parliament this week said it would 

replace Google with the French search engine Qwant

 as its default, citing sovereignty and privacy concerns. The Netherlands has also 

 to acquire Solvinity, which operates the DigiD digital identity system.

At the same time, officials stress the package is not about closing markets. The proposed 

 would create a single EU framework to assess cloud and AI sovereignty while keeping most of the market open to “like-minded partners.” Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen said the goal is to strengthen Europe’s “digital autonomy and resilience” without undermining openness.

The scale of Europe’s dependence is significant. According to the Commission, US cloud companies control more than 70% of the EU cloud market while the EU produces less than 10% of global semiconductors and is almost entirely dependent on the United States and Asia. The EU itself said it currently spends €264 billion a year mostly on US proprietary IT products and services.

At the core of the package is the Cloud and AI Development Act, which introduces four trust tiers for cloud services used by public authorities. The tiers are based on criteria including ownership and control, supply chain dependencies, data processing, infrastructure location and cybersecurity.

The proposal directly addresses concerns about extraterritorial laws. Providers may be subject to third-country legislation requiring access to data stored in Europe — a reference widely understood to include US law. The Commission notes that the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, while governing transatlantic data transfers, does not remove sovereignty concerns about dependence on third-country providers — as 'the notion of sovereignty goes beyond data transfers and relates to operational autonomy too.'"

The framework is mandatory but graduated. All public bodies must use at least tier 1 services, while more sensitive functions — such as national security, defense, law enforcement and border management — would require higher-tier providers subject to independent audits. The Commission estimates just 1% of Europe's public services are sensitive enough to require the strictest tier, which would effectively exclude providers subject to foreign jurisdiction. Limited exemptions would be possible in duly justified cases.

Beyond the sovereignty tiers, the Commission is also targeting the supply side — an implicit acknowledgment that rules alone will not shift a market dominated by foreign providers.

 sets out a series of “Cloud and AI Leadership Initiatives” aimed at scaling European capabilities, from research funding to large-scale industrial deployment. It proposes fast-track “data center acceleration zones,” where permits would be granted within 12 months, and introduces procurement criteria designed to give preference to providers that demonstrate added value within the EU.

The package also foresees a “EuroCloud Federation” allowing member states to pool and share unused cloud and data center capacity across borders, alongside a requirement for governments to adopt national cloud and AI strategies aligned with the Commission’s broader AI policy framework.

Taken together, the measures reflect a deliberate shift in approach. Rather than excluding foreign providers outright, Brussels is seeking to build the conditions under which European alternatives can compete — using public procurement, coordination and targeted investment to tilt the market over time.

Chips: from supply push to demand strategy

 committed around €52 billion in public and private investment toward a target, set at the time, of doubling Europe's global semiconductor market share to 20% by 2030. The EU's share remains below 10%.

A revised Chips Act shifts focus from supply to demand, seeking to connect European chipmakers with domestic industrial users. Demand is expected to surge, driven by data centers, automotive and consumer electronics, potentially doubling by 2040.

In the event of a declared shortage, the Commission would gain powers to issue priority-rated orders requiring manufacturers to prioritize certain production. Companies complying would be shielded from liability for breaching existing contracts, although the proposal acknowledges limits where capacity is insufficient or economic harm would be disproportionate.

The EU also plans a major expansion of data center capacity, aiming to roughly triple output within five to seven years and reduce geographic concentration in hubs such as Dublin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris.

Installed capacity is already projected to grow significantly by 2030, driven by market demand alone. But the Commission warns that unchecked expansion could strain electricity systems, worsen grid congestion and increase energy prices. Data centers already account for around 2.5% of EU electricity consumption, although research suggests existing facilities are 

The EU’s initial approach relies on a voluntary framework between operators, energy providers and public authorities, due in the second half of 2026. Binding measures remain an option if voluntary coordination proves insufficient.

The scale of investment required is substantial: an estimated €120 billion for semiconductors, €200 billion for data centers by 2036, €100 billion for cloud and AI, and €2 billion for open-source software over seven years. The annual energy investment gap is put at €400 billion.

Brussels is betting heavily on private capital. Funding would be channeled through the proposed European Competitiveness Fund in the EU’s next long-term budget, alongside initiatives such as InvestAI, which aims to mobilize €200 billion.

Brussels itself noted that Europe still lacks the risk capital needed to scale its own tech champions.

The legislative proposals now move into negotiations between the Commission, the European Parliament and member states.

, including a data center energy labeling scheme later this year and potential minimum performance standards, though formal assessment is not expected before 2027.

The package significantly expands EU intervention powers in strategic sectors. Whether Europe can mobilize the investment, infrastructure and political coordination needed to match its ambitions remains an open question.

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