European Commission tables tech sovereignty package for AI, cloud and opensource
The European Commission has presented a raft of measures to strengthen the EU’s ability to produce semiconductors, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and opensource technologies.
The batch of measures, the European Technological Sovereignty Package, includes two legislative proposals – the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) – as well as the Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy and the Open Source Strategy.
The package emphasises the need for Europe to seize control of its supply of semiconductors, which are the building blocks of AI systems, as well as a plethora of other technologies that European businesses and citizens depend on.
Emphasising the package’s strategic importance, the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure.”
She added that the package had been tabled to protect European citizens and defend European interests, allowing nations access to homegrown talent and an industrial base within the single market.
“Together, we must turn these strengths into technological sovereignty,” she said.
Read more: Governments of UK and Canada announce plans to secure AI sovereignty
The pursuit of sovereign semiconductor design and production
The Chips Act 2.0 is intended to further “the progress made by the original Chips Act”, the enactment of which in 2023 recognised the role of electronic chips in digital transformation across a range of key industries and capabilities, including data processing and defence.
The commission said that the latest iteration of the legislation would “allow the EU to maintain its position as an indispensable player in the value chain… deepen cooperation with like-minded partners… [and] introduce a new excellence label for Europe’s semiconductor regions”.
In its announcement of the package, the commission highlighted that Europe “still relies heavily” on other countries for chip design and advanced production. AI-related components are expected to make up “over 70% of the semiconductor market” by 2030.
CADA is described by the commission as “part of a broader set of initiatives to help the EU become a global leader in AI”. The legislation has been designed to aid the operations of factories and gigafactories that use high-performance computers to train AI models, and to create “the right conditions to improve EU cloud capacity”.
Describing its plan as “an ecosystem approach”, the commission said its aim was to bring European chipmakers “closer to their customers and build on the demand of growth sectors, such as data centres [and] cloud providers” as well as AI gigafactories.
In addition to supporting the use of high-performance computers, CADA has been designed to support “research and innovation in cutting-edge and sustainable technologies”.
The commission also stressed the need to balance “AI ambitions with climate commitments”, acknowledging the intensive use of resources such as fresh water and electricity to power data centres.
Read more: UK government announces backing of British AI companies under new sovereign fund
Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy
High energy prices were a driving factor in the commission’s decision to introduce the package. The commission said that energy prices had “put pressure on industrial competitiveness and households’ budgets” and that demand for electricity would rise as the need for new digital infrastructure grows.
The Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy sets out “how AI and other digital solutions can ensure the sustainable integration of digital infrastructure in our energy system”, the commission said.
The intention is to ensure that energy-hungry data centres are “integrated into our energy system in a sustainable and transparent manner” and that water and energy resources are sufficiently safeguarded.
The commission also said it would help build “sovereign and secure AI models for the energy sector, trained on European data and developed by European companies”.
Read more: Canada publishes new national AI strategy with focus on trust and sovereignty
Creating a ‘stronger opensource ecosystem’
The package also aims to support the creation of a “stronger opensource ecosystem” through investment in European opensource start-ups and related skills, as well as to protect Europe’s opensource digital infrastructure over the long-term.
The commission noted that Europe has “three million open-source contributors” that supply homegrown digital solutions, and that the plan would further bolster digital sovereignty.
It will also provide public administrations in the EU with procurement and best practice guidance to encourage them to use European opensource solutions more fully.
The legislative proposals in the package are due will be negotiated by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
In addition, the commission said it planned to launch a consultation with EU member states, the European Investment Bank Group and other stakeholders to establish “European equity capacity at scale” to finance European technological sovereignty.
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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