Brussels is talking up “tech sovereignty”, and Europe’s corporates are already counting the cost of ripping out US software and cloud services.
Plenty of boardrooms admit they are welded to American kit, from office tools to hyperscale cloud and the newer AI services everyone is bolting on.
Thyssenkrupp Material Services chief executive Ilse Henne said: “In Europe today we are not truly in the position to substitute all our IT solutions… with European solutions,” while adding that big investment and political backing would be needed to shift away from US tech.
Senior figures at European tech and infrastructure names such as ASML, Ericsson and Capgemini have been warning against knee-jerk protectionism that would push up costs and put the brakes on investment. The anxiety has spiked as Europe’s digital sovereignty drive picked up pace, fuelled by fears that US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy could trigger a messy “tech decoupling”.
The European Commission is due to unveil a “tech sovereignty package” next month, targeting more sovereign cloud capacity and more independence in software. Some companies think politicians are waving this through while ignoring how disruptive a switch would be, especially with Chinese competition, high energy prices and shaky transatlantic trade already biting.
Commerzbank said the “range, quality and technological maturity of services” offered by US groups Microsoft and Google is only available to a “limited extent” in Europe. The bank added: “As a result, the benefits of using these providers at this point in time outweigh the inherent risks associated with doing so,” which is banker-speak for “we’d rather not set fire to our systems”.
